Schundler to NJ Education Commissioner

The New York Post reported today the appointment of Brett Schundler as Education Commissioner for the state of New Jersey. While this isn't exactly "new" news (the word on this had been out for a few days), the Post article seemed to grasp the importance of this appointment:

New Jersey Gov.-Elect Chris Christie's most audacious move so far has been his choice for state education commissioner -- former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, a man the National Education Association once dubbed Public Enemy No. 1 for his advocacy of school choice.

Christie rolled to victory last November on the basis of voter discontent with the Garden State's high taxes and its budgetary problems. And it's clear that getting Jersey's spending under control means finding ways to get more bang for the state's education bucks -- which will require reforms like those Schundler has long advocated, but which teachers unions despise.

As the state's largest donor to political candidates, the NJEA is the kind of all 'Special Interests'. While Democrats like to pretend that special interests can only be businesses, citizens have learned to know better. As a matter of fact, the Obama administration has taken union special interest to an entirely new level (pushing a healthcare bill that apparently will only serve to help the SEIU and no one else). But while union politics is often unseemly, the situation in our urban schools is a mess:

Jersey serves as an example of how money alone, absent reform, does little to help failing schools. A series of court orders has forced the state to funnel billions of dollars into 31 urban districts (the total's now about $4 billion a year), with little impact on student achievement. Camden has a whopping $340 million budget for a system serving 13,000 students (more than $26,000 per student), yet 26 of the city's schools failed to make adequate progress last year toward federal education requirements. In Newark, only about 42 percent of eighth graders were deemed proficient on recent state math assessment tests.

Jersey's urban school districts suffer from decades of patronage, waste and a focus on politics instead of education. To take one example, in 1995, the state seized control of the Newark schools because of corruption and has operated them ever since. Though the state's takeover brought some measure of stability to the system, it did little to reform classroom instruction or improve student performance -- prompting an angered Mayor Cory Booker to declare last year, "We have to find ways to expand options for parents and reward innovation" in Newark.

I am with Cory Booker on this one. And let's hope that Schundler can start to make this system work for children instead of the NJEA.

Read the entire article here.

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More on the Center for Fathers

Special thanks to WBGO's News Director, Doug Doyle, for forwarding the press release about the Center for Fathers to me. I can also now find a tiny amount of coverage for the program (a few of these are essentially the same article): here, here, here, and here.

Here's the press release:

Mayor Booker Tours Newark comprehensive Center for Fathers; Program Provides Support and Resources for City's Dads
Program aims to help Newark fathers raise their children and lead productive lives

Newark, NJ - June 9, 2008 - Mayor Cory A. Booker toured a bold new program to assist Newark fathers at the Newark comprehensive Center for Fathers (NCCF) at Essex County College today. The center is designed to provide an array of services to fathers in transition - men who have lost their jobs or homes, or who are re-entering the workforce following incarceration and who seek to assume greater responsibility for and contribute to the lives of their children.

The facility is administered by the non-profit Newark Now in partnership with the City of Newark; Newark Works; the New Jersey Department of Labor; New Jersey Legal Services; and the ReLese Network. The program is in its third week and already has 20 fathers in the class.

"With the opening of this center, we are now providing the tools that or fathers need to succeed - as men, as parents and as residents of Newark," Mayor Booker said. "I am reaching out to and challenging all the fathers in Newark who are at risk or need help to come out and talk to our staff so that they can help in addressing all needs and concerns. Through the efforts put into this program, residents throughout the City of Newark will be able to sustain successful and productive lives for themselves and their families."

Using a holistic approach, Newark's Comprehensive Center for Fathers offers mentoring, parenting, life skills classes, legal assistance, math and reading skills, individual counseling, support groups, father/child activities. In addition, the program offers employment search and interview preparations services.

At the tour, Mayor Booker was joined by Newark Now Executive Director Modia Butler and Lavar Young, the Executive Director of Newark's Comprehensive Center for Fathers. The NCCF program is based on Philadelphia's nationally-recognized National comprehensive Center for Fathers.

The center's hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. To contact the center and learn more about its programs, call (973) 733-3460 ext. 432.

Contact:
Press Information Office: (973) 733-8004
Press Secretary Esmeralda Diaz Cameron: (201) 396-2556
E-mail: Pressoffice@ci.newark.nj.us

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Happy Fathers' Day from Cory Booker

UPDATE: I apologize for the incoherence of what follows. Special thanks to Doug Doyle, WBGO's news director, for sending me the press release that sparked their news item (now published here), and to Cephas Bowles, WBGO's General Manager, for taking the time to discuss funding for public radio in the comments section below.

I've slightly modified the post to fix a few things that the press release helped me sort out.

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I don't know much about Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, but I want to know more after hearing a news report this morning on Jazz 88, WBGO (if you're not a member, you really should be*).

I'm upset that there isn't coverage about this anywhere. I can't get quotations, and what you're getting is a brain dump of what I heard when I was driving twelve hours ago instead of responsible reporting.

Doug Doyle, the WBGO News Director, talked about a new Center for Fathers in Newark. It's specifically for fathers who are out of work or newly released from jail. Mayor Booker said something to the effect that fathers are a critical part of the life of Newark; that how they fare affects Newark's stability.

Mayor Booker made a comment that I can't clearly recall now, but I remember thinking that he wasn't talking about the equality of the sexes, or of the poor and underprivileged, or of providing handouts to the needy; he was talking about a center where men could learn to be independent men and good fathers in tough times. [From the press release: "With the opening of this center, we are now providing the tools that or fathers need to succeed - as men, as parents and as residents of Newark."]

I hope that I heard correctly. I'd like to know more, but I can't find a thing about this new center out there.

I'm not big on spending money unnecessarily, but seeing a local politician highlight something that would make such a big difference to his environment is really compelling. I wish him well.

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* Yes, I know that I shouldn't like Public Radio. I still don't understand what it means to be a "A private corporation funded by the American people", as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) claims to be, nor how the differences between the CPB, PBS, and NPR really matter, if the CPB funds PBS and NPR -- it still sounds like our tax money, just filtered through more layers of bureaucracy. But if they're going to fund it anyway, I'm not going to ignore it out of spite; and if I really think that people should pay for what they want, then WBGO is well worth paying for.

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