The Big Issue at Tonight's Board Of Education Meeting

I have learned that at tonight’s BoE meeting, the board will have to take a stand in support of Dr. Toback and his letter to the DoE expressing his desire for denial of Hola's 6-8 grade expansion.

I am aware that this is a very touchy issue in town.  I have somewhat of a unique perspective, so I wanted to write a little something about it.  I also have 2 kids in the Junior-Senior High School and we are very happy there.  Also, I can’t make the Board meeting tonight, so I thought I’d write this.

I wanted to write a little note to everyone who cares to read my opinion about the decision of the Hoboken Board of Education and School District Superintendent, Dr. Mark Toback to disapprove of the HOLA Dual Language Charter School’s application to expand their charter to allow Grades 6-8 in the school.  There are very good reasons why Dr. Toback and the School Board are recommending that the New Jersey State Commissioner of Education not allow the HOLA School to expand.

The reasons why the district is not in favor of the expansion of the HOLA School are based upon the way schools are funded in New Jersey.  If you read this and are interested, you will learn upon further research that the state saves money when a Charter School is opened.  Initially, we all have to understand how the state pays for schools in the first place.  Each school district receives an allocation from the state to fund all of the schools in that district.  The allocation does not change regardless of the number of schools within that district.  The same goes for Charter Schools (which you are aware are all public, not privately funded) schools, just like Calabro and Connors, etc.  What people do not know is that while charters cost the local districts more, they don’t cost the state any more money.  The way the New Jersey State Legislature set up the funding formula for charters almost certainly leads to the failure of those charters.  In fact, the way the funding formula is worded, the law sets up a fight between the people who want charters and those who think we all should work together to make the district we have beter.  Please be aware that the New Jersey Governor (who claims to have spent more on education than anyone else) loves charters because it saves the state money by allowing charters. 

As I said, the charter costs the local district more, tho.  This is true.  The schools that are located within the boundaries of the Hoboken School District all share the funds that come to the Hoboken district.  If there are more charters, the funds just get divided a bit more and everyone gets less.  I was Board Chair at the Elysian Charter School for 4 years and I learned after I became involved how unfair and wrong this funding formula is.  As I learned, the state is tricking us by doing this.  They encourage us to create charters and the reason has nothing to do with quality education, its about dollars and cents.  If you see it from this perspective, it is easy to understand why the Hoboken Superintendent and Board do not want to whittle their (and every school’s) funding down a bit more to make room for more unfunded growth of the education system in Hoboken.

I also want to point out that this is a classic political strategy called Divide and Conquer.  We are all in this together.  We are all Hobokenites with kids in the public schools (be they charters or HBOE schools) - they can all be great if we stop diluting more and more by adding or expanding charters.  What’s really happening is each school effectively has to do more with less every year that we add another charter or expand a charter.  This all takes away from our ability in Hoboken to create a world class program in Hoboken.  We all want to have the best schools in the state, but by the State telling us that we can create a charter to have more educational choices, what they’re really doing is tricking us into diluting the funding even more and thinning out the amount that each program receives.  That’s what happens when we pay for more local schools with the same amount of dollars we had before we had all these additional schools.  Unless the funding formula changes, this will not end well. 

Please be thoughtful about this - its not about pitting pro-charter people against pro-district people - we are all the district - we should be putting our heads together, not drawing the wagons around two separate groups.  Don’t allow them to divide and conquer us.  We are all in this together and we all want the same excellent education for our kids.  We’re not all that different at all, only in the way we look - on the inside, we’re all mostly the same.  And we all care about our kids, their future and the future of the US and the whole planet.

Thank you for reading

Steve Feinstein