Skip to main content

Education Law Center Opposes Charter School Pre-School Programs in New Jersey’s Poorest Districts

The Education Law Center is one of the nation’s pre-eminent civil rights organizations committed to improving equality of educational opportunity. It points out in the following release that the charter schools have never signed the legally required contracts to participate in court-ordered universal pre-school programs in the state’s poorest districts, the “Abbott Districts.”

 

December 9, 2019
ELC CALLS FOR END TO SEPARATE CHARTER SCHOOL PRE-K PROGRAMS IN ABBOTT DISTRICTS
Education Law Center is calling for the NJ Department of Education (NJDOE) to immediately end the unauthorized practice of allowing charter schools in poor urban Abbott districts to operate separate preschool programs outside the districts’ universal “Abbott Preschool Program.”
The administration of former Governor Chris Christie allowed 10 charter schools in five Abbott districts to operate their own preschool programs, despite not having a contract from the districts to participate in the districts’ universal program, as required by the landmark Abbott v. Burke rulings. In 2019-20, the 10 charter preschool programs enrolled 630 three- and four-year-olds, funded by over $8 million in state preschool aid.
ELC’s December 2019 letter to the NJDOE emphasizes that, under the NJ Supreme Court’s detailed Abbott preschool mandates, only Abbott districts are authorized to offer high quality preschool to all resident three- and four-year-olds through an NJDOE-approved universal enrollment program. While community providers and Head Start are eligible to operate preschool classrooms in Abbott districts, they can only do so under a contract with the districts. The district contract requires strict adherence to teacher quality, class size, and other Abbott preschool standards, as well as enrollment through the district’s universal outreach and recruitment process.
As the Supreme Court has made clear, these requirements are essential elements of the constitutional obligation imposed on Abbott districts to provide high quality preschool to all eligible three- and four-year old children residing in their communities. The districts are mandated to enroll at least 90 percent of the universe of those children. The requirement for community-based providers to operate only under district contracts ensures that only those providers capable of and willing to deliver high quality preschool through district coordination, support and supervision, can participate in the Abbott program.
The NJDOE’s decision to allow the 10 charter schools to operate separate preschool programs not only violates the Abbott rulings and the agency’s own regulations, but also undermines the cornerstone of the nationally-recognized success of the Abbott Preschool Program: a district-supervised, mixed delivery system of early education unifying community-based providers and district classrooms under a common set of high quality standards, backed by adequate funding. This well-established legal and policy framework does not permit any entity, including charter schools, to provide preschool wholly outside of the district-run, universal Abbott program.
“The NJDOE has no authority to permit a charter school to run a parallel preschool program that competes with the district’s Abbott program for students and funding,” said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director and lead counsel in the Abbott litigation. “Charter schools in Abbott districts cannot operate preschool classrooms unless they enter into a contract with the district, as is required of every community-based provider and Head Start program participating in Abbott preschool.”
In 2019-20, the following charter schools are providing preschool without obtaining the legally required contract to participate in the Abbott district program:
In addition to calling for an end to the unauthorized practice of allowing charter schools to operate their own preschool programs, ELC is also demanding the NJDOE immediately notify the 10 charter schools that to continue to provide preschool in the 2020-21 school year, they must secure a contract with their district to participate in the district-wide Abbott preschool program.
Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
Education Law Center
60 Park Place, Suite 300
Newark, NJ 07102
973-624-1815, ext. 24


Udimi - Buy Solo Ads from Diane Ravitch's blog https://ift.tt/2tgOwQS
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Author discusses book on grad school

Graduate school is a great mystery to students, and to some faculty members, says Jessica McCrory Calarco, the author of A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum (Princeton University Press). Calarco is an associate professor of sociology at Indiana University. She believes many faculty members (as well as graduate students, of course) will benefit from her book. She responded to questions via email. Q: How did you get the idea to write this book? Why did the issue speak to you? A: This book started as a tweet . Or, rather, as a series of tweets about the hidden curriculum of higher ed. Ph.D. student Kristen K. Smith had tweeted about the need to better educate undergrads about grad school opportunities, and it made me think about how opportunities in academe are often hidden from grad students, as well. Reflecting on my own experiences in grad school, I thought about the many times I'd found myself embarrassed because of what I didn't know -- the

Guest Blog: Where Does the Bizarre Hysteria About “Critical Race Theory” Come From?—Follow the Money!

Blog:  Just Visiting Guest Blog: Where Does the Bizarre Hysteria About “Critical Race Theory” Come From?—Follow the Money! By Isaac Kamola Trinity College Hartford, CT There are now numerous well-documented examples of wealthy right-wing and libertarian donors using that wealth to transform higher education in their own image. Between 2005 and 2019, for example, the Charles Koch Foundation has spent over  $485 million  at more than 550 universities. As demonstrated by Douglas Beets and others, many of these grants include considerable  donor influence  over what gets taught, researched, and even who gets hired. It should therefore come as no surprise that conservative megadonor, Walter Hussman Jr.,  lobbied hard  to deny the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones a tenured professorship at the UNC journalism school that bears his name. Nor that her offer of tenure, awarded through the normal channels of faculty governance, was ultimately  revoked   by a far-

Live Updates: Latest News on COVID-19 and Higher Education

Image:  Woman Charged With Faking Positive COVID-19 Test From U of Iowa   Nov. 5, 6:14 a.m. A lawyer in Colorado has been charged with faking a positive COVID-19 test from the University of Iowa to get out of a court appearance, The Gazette reported.   Emily Elizabeth Cohen was booked Tuesday on a detainer from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, shortly after she tweeted that the Colorado court system “just had me arrested alleging I lied about having COVID. Tweeting from cop car.”   The Boulder Daily Camera reported that Cohen is scheduled for a 10-day trial in Boulder County in Colorado starting Dec. 6 for 11 felony counts stemming from allegations she collected fees from immigrant families before losing contact with them without producing visas or work permits.   -- Scott Jaschik Judge Permits Suit Against Montana State to Go to Trial Nov. 3, 6:18 a.m. A Montana judge has ruled that a suit against Montana State University over the shift to online education