The NJ Spotlight Opinion Piece “Voucher Bills Fall Prey to False Advertising and Small Thinking” is a subjective commentary by Mr. MacInnes which mischaracterizes both the intent of the Opportunity Scholarship Act and the urgency of the need for OSA.

As a mother living in the City of the Township of Orange , with a young son of school age, I am outraged that another generation of children from my community is a prisoner of chronically failing schools. Our urban children have no access to the opportunities afforded to many of the s uburban counterparts, to attend a school that will prepare them to go to college, or get meaningful employment that will enable them to support their families, and contribute to our communities. While I am privileged to be a middle class parent who can afford to send my son to an independent school of our choice, it is a significant economic challenge to do so in New Jersey .

Mr MacInnes’ comments are an intellectualized response to a serious effort on behalf of honorable and passionate people in New Jersey to solve an educational crisis in our urban communities. I take issue with Mr. Mac Innes’ characterization of these good people as “not motivated primarily by the desire to help the poorest kids in the poorest districts”. It is erroneous to suggest that OSA scholarships, in either legislative form, are about funding private schools. OSA provides scholarships to participating out of district public schools, and religious and independent schools in or out of district. To say that OSA doesn’t target the poor because the median income is 2.5 times the Federal poverty level, when NJ has one of he highest costs of living in the country is decidedly misleading. To suggest that family of five with an income of $67,000 can not be considered poor enough in NJ to participate in the Opportunity Scholarship Act also flies in the face of the fact that in New Jersey the cost to educate one child in the chronically failing public school system is $24,000 – $30,000 per child, and is equal to far more than half of that family’s pre tax income.

The day to day administrative details of OSA will be determined as a result of the final bill that is passed, which will be refined and tested along with the educational program. The OSA’s intention is to do something dramatic now to save as many children as possible from the cycle of failure in failing schools, while the legislature, Governor, NJEA, and interest groups are negotiating long term education reform focused on the teacher, and school administrators.

OSA is an immediate education reform program funded initially by corporate tax credits. It creates opportunities for children in chronically failing schools in urban communities to fill the available seats in any eligible, and participating school that meet all federal and state educational mandates. While we all admit there are not enough non-public school seats available to absorb all of the eligible children, if successful OSA can drive the creation of new schools based on current educational best practices, and drive the public school system to be more competitive, realigning their business practices, and refining their educational mission. We can’t keep throwing good money after bad and continue to expect different results.

Now is the time for OSA. Now is not the time to divide the discussion along party or legislative body lines. Now is not the time to debate how close to the poverty line is poor enough. Now is not the time to ignore the civil rights issue inherent in the discrepancies between the urban and suburban public education experience. Now is the time to do something decisive and immediate to stem the tide of failure in our urban school districts, and provide hope for this generation of urban children in New Jersey .

We, the parents and community members of the urban districts where the Opportunity Scholarship Act will be implemented have experienced the continued failure of urban public education to serve our children, and we believe in OSA.

It time for scholarships for our children NOW. Vote for OSA by texting OSANOW to 99000 today.

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/12/0316/0145/

After a winter hiatus, a trimmed-down Opportunity Scholarship Act proposal is back in the legislature with a prominent new sponsor in the state Assembly but the loss of another in the Senate.

State Assemblyman Angel Fuentes (D-Camden) yesterday said he filed a new bill that would include just seven districts as part of the pilot to provide scholarships — or vouchers — to low-income students to go to schools of their choice, public or private.

More notably, the second primary sponsor on the bill is state Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), the Assembly majority leader who has said he would support a smaller pilot and now has his name attached to one.

“I am not a believer in vouchers [across the state], but I do believe in a few select communities where children are a prisoner of their own poverty and denied a right to an education,” Greenwald said yesterday.

The new Assembly bill comes a week after state Sen. Thomas Kean Jr. (R-Union) filed a new version of the bill he has long sponsored but also in fewer districts. But it was missing a key sponsor, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), the longtime and prominent backer of the bill who gave it key support on the Democratic side.

Lesniak yesterday said he dropped his sponsorship for a variety of reasons, including the closing by the Archdiocese of Newark of another prominent Catholic school in his hometown of Elizabeth. St. Patrick High School, the basketball powerhouse, might have been saved if a voucher bill passed, he said. The archdiocese had been a prominent backer of the long-debated bill.

“We asked them to keep it open for a year, and they turned their back on it,” said Lesniak. “Let’s just say there hasn’t been as much enthusiasm for the bill as there has been in the past.”

Lesniak would not elaborate on the other reasons his name was no longer on the bill, and he did not rule out coming back. “My enthusiasm for it has lost a lot of steam, but that’s not to say it can’t get reenergized,” he said.

Kean said last night he was hopeful Lesniak’s support would return. “He’ll be back,” Kean said. “It’s an important bill and we’ve worked together many a year on it. We’ll continue to work together.”

The personal and political dramas of who is in and who is out as supporters come as backers hope to revive the bill in a new session of the legislature. Gov. Chris Christie has continually called it one of his top education priorities, and yesterday a group of clergy leaders held an event in the Statehouse to press for its passage.

But for close to a decade, every time it appears to gain ground, the bill then suffers a setback and disappears from public view for a few months. It faces furious opposition, most notably from the New Jersey Education Association and other education groups that see it as an attack on public schools.

Last year, the bill won approval in another legislative committee, but it never could get posted for vote of the full Senate or Assembly. Even among backers, a big issue remained the size and scope of the bill, at times involving as many as 30 districts and last year more than a dozen.

The new versions seek to address that with a pilot half that size. Fuentes and Greenwald’s bill would include seven districts: Newark, Camden, Passaic, Elizabeth, Lakewood, Asbury Park and Orange. Kean includes those seven districts plus Perth Amboy.

“Seven is a rational number, and all are districts with significantly failing schools,” said Greenwald.

“We’re looking at lucky seven,” added Fuentes, although he said he was approaching legislators to add Paterson as well.

There are a couple of other changes from previous versions, including a new mechanism for accepting students who are currently enrolled in private schools by limiting it to those who would be changing schools anyway. Both bills would also cut back on the administrative costs of the program.

“I’m really optimistic,” said Kean of his bill’s prospects. “I think there is some great momentum in these bills.”

Greenwald wasn’t so sure, but said this may be a new start to the dialogue. “They still have a lot of work to do, but you can’t give them the opportunity without something to show people,” he said. “This is where that is.”