Money for Nothing: We Owe Our Children Better

NEWARK, NJ (01/14/2009)(readMedia)--

School Watch Releases
"Money for Nothing: We Owe Our Children Better"
Study of Newark Public School System

Per-Pupil Spending Estimated at $23,141. Magnets Disproportionately Producing High School Graduates. Effectiveness of State Intervention Questioned. Broad Reforms Required for Genuine Change.

School Watch, Excellent Education for Everyone's education policy and finance think tank, today released its comprehensive study of the Newark Public School (NPS) system, Money for Nothing: We Owe Our Children Better. The study analyzes the true cost of educating students in NPS, offers cross-sector comparisons of NPS, the Newark charter school network, and local non-public school capacity, and offers a series of recommendations to spur necessary reform.

"Newark spends more per student than almost any public school district in the country, urban or suburban. Even when you acknowledge the important role of resources in addressing disadvantaged students, there's no way you can justify the kind of student achievement we see when it is viewed in the context of the system's overall cost," said Peter Denton, chairman of E3, which he co-founded with Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Most notable among Money for Nothing's content is its "count-it-all" exploration of NPS per-pupil spending, which establishes a formula that can be readily applied to other districts.

"School districts orchestrate school budgeting in the most opaque manner possible," said Dan Gaby, E3's Executive Director. "The more difficult it is to find the actual cost of something, the easier it is to deflect accountability for the money. Whether or not someone supports the data laid out in Money for Nothing, one thing is certain, NPS students are being shortchanged."

Money for Nothing also offers a series of aggressive recommendations to spur reform in NPS, and other large urban districts. Among them are significant changes to Newark's teacher contract, increased school choice via tax credit scholarships, and a fast track approach to charter school conversions. An overhaul of the tenure system, as well as the manner in which teachers are recruited and deployed across the system, is also recommended.

"If you examine the work of the Education Trust, and, more importantly, study the efforts of Washington D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, it becomes clear that, precisely where we need our best teachers—in classrooms with our neediest students—we do not have them," said Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, Executive Director of the Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey and newly appointed vice-chair of E3's Board of Directors. "We have many teachers that are trying their best, but they are not our best teachers. This disparity is openly acknowledged by other large district-leaders, New York City's Joel Klein among them, and cannot be addressed without substantial changes to how teachers are recruited to, and released from, the teaching corps."

Download a copy of Money for Nothing: We Owe Our Children Better at http://tinyurl.com/798tbg or http://www.nje3.org/schoolwatch/moneyfornothing.pdf

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Other School Watch Publications and Positions Include:

Special Review Assessment Whitepaper Giving Diplomas Meaning: http://tinyurl.com/8sahc5

Recent Testimony on proposed legislation banning the use of the Special Review Assessment: http://www.nje3.org/?p=1825

Comprehensive Testimony on the School Funding Formula: http://tinyurl.com/9qcdh3

Economic Study of S-1607/A-2897, the Urban Enterprise Zone Jobs Scholarship Act: http://tinyurl.com/7gp78h

Contact: Dan Gaby @ 973-342-7807 or cryandgc@aol.com