November 30, 2011

New Jersey Education Commissioner Defends Charter School Application Reviewers

New Jersey Education Commissioner Defends Charter School Application Reviewers
According to the NJ Spotlight, over the past year, the Christie administration employed an array of national and state charter school experts, educators, officials, and other advocates to help review applications for new charters, according to documents released under a public records request. Sen. Nia Gill (D-Essex) filed the request under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), and her office yesterday shared the state's response of more than a dozen pages of names and emails. Gill said yesterday the lists in both years was notably absent of traditional public school educators and community representatives. "It underscores the need for the local community to have more of a role in the process," Gill said. Chris Cerf, New Jersey's education commissioner, said yesterday he's glad the names are out. Cerf defended the reviewers and their pro-charter leanings as valuable to the process. And he stressed that the final decisions still rested with his office and the department. "These are serious educators and quality people who want public education to succeed," he said. "A central theme of charter advocates today is we need to be extremely thoughtful about who we give a charter school to, and we may have been too generous historically. Being charter advocates is not at all inconsistent with being concerned about quality."  Source: NJ Spotlight

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