A new school is very good news. I remember signing a petition for this a year or two ago

How much will property taxes increase?

Don't worry about that. Property taxes will continue to increase for the next several years as the remaining state school funding cuts are phased in. Besides, we have a very low rate by NJ standards, so it is inevitable that the current rate will increase quite a bit over the next several years.

Rate is less important than actual dollars paid

lol... wut? Total dollars is totally dependent on the rate.

Total dollars is also dependent on property values and property values in jersey city are high. People care about absolute tax dollars paid and not just rate.

>Charter School

Gross.

Does anyone know about this "Kindle Education" that's running the school? The rest of Jersey City's charters are community run. If they're introducing a corporate-run charter into the district, that doesn't bode well for the rest of our schools.

Please explain. I don’t understand.

We probably have the highest property tax rate in the state by price paid per square footage so I don’t think we have a very low rate by all metrics.

Charter schools are bad.

They often take money from public school funding, but don’t have the same standards or accountability. So, instead of putting more money into schools that need it, we’re actually just diverting or draining money. That said, it depends how the charter school is set up or funded.

Why? Genuine question.

LMDGTFY

It's impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who willfully ignores the basic facts. Property taxes are based on property value. PERIOD. There is no such thing as "our property tax rate is high when calculated based on square footage" because that's not even a thing. You are trying to change the definition to fit your idea of how things are or should be, but that's not a rational thing to do. The conversation is quite simple: in the state of NJ, we have one of the lowest property tax rates. That's an incontrovertible fact.

Not sure what point you think you are making... If you want to pay less, you can move into a less expensive property. Ultimately, the fact is that total dollars are based on a simple equation:

(property tax rate) * (property value) = (total dollars)

How do you propose that result be lowered? The sum of all (total dollars) is what funds the municipal budget. If you want to pay less in property taxes you can either move somewhere else, or move to a lower value property within JC. But, bitching about total dollars paid in an online forum will not make the existing commitments magically disappear. We have a municipal budget, a county budget, and a school budget. The portion of the current tax levy represented by the school budget is slated to keep increasing for several more years. That's a fact. The municipal budget is not likely to shrink any time soon, so you can count on that remaining at the same level, or going up. The county budget seems to always go up, even if just a little bit. So... what is your proposal to lower "total dollars"??

32 Oakland ave. Used to be a whore house. Lol

We also live in the densest part of Nj, density should beget more efficient use of taxes, we’re not a small county in nj which for no good reason has its own PD and FD and school admin

This is all part of the process, just something else for people to stick their hands in and pull out more money and resources while destroying the area around it.

This is like saying public schools are bad

It’s that’s people have only moved into JC / Hudson county over the last several years. Our taxes are gonna go up because it’s becoming now an expensive place to live. They need their money.

Oh aren’t you helpful

It's not though. Public schools are good.

I helped you learn a new verb :-P

Charters would not be necessary if JCPS weren’t such a shitshow

Charter schools dont actually perform any better than public schools, and actually result in a net decrease in educational attainment because there is less money for public schools.

Plus lower pay for teachers, creaming, inflated executive salaries and plenty of corruption.

Gotta be better than what we have lol

[deleted]

how is this good news?

It’s part of why they’re a shit show.

They take the more profitable easy to teach students and leave the more expensive ones in public schools.

Then everyone complains that public schools spend too much per child and have poorer outcomes ignoring how many barriers are put into place to avoid letting kids with expensive issues get into charter schools.

It’s like a hospital who claims cost effective treatment compared to other hospitals but only treats skinned knees. Everyone else gets sent to other ER’s.

50% of charter schools close by the 15 year mark

50% of charter schools close by the 15 year mark - they are the perfect scam for a city like JC that relies on having a disinterested and transient population to allow public officials to do whatever they want.

I would say the people who move here tend to be generally well informed, and the lack of information is more due to the media doing a horrible job.

I’m not a school expert but I know that there’s a lack of school options and physical school buildings.

The school system is not doing so hot. Probably time to try something new.

Students are not the shitshow. I don’t fault individual teachers either but the incompetent deadweights in administration building that make your life incredibly difficult as a tax paying parent when you’re trying to enroll or transfer your kid or need any kind of basic assistance or clarity from their convoluted and often asinine practices. The level of disdain and contempt they show to people that pay their salaries and pensions is beyond despicable. Their standard protocol for responding to emails is “Ignore all”. Then when you are forced to call them it’s never easy - and that someone on the phone is usually just so fucking rude and impatient AF like “why the fuck are you bothering me?”. The culture from admin layer gets passed down to individual schools leadership unfortunately and overall this is the shitshow that gave birth to popularity of charters I am betting.

You’re not a school expert? Shocking.

Charter schools are terrible and aren’t obligated to accommodate special needs students and take away funding from public schools. You don’t have to be an expert to see how not being able to accommodate special ed students is a bad thing.

Lol that was good but as always you have little of value to add.

Wait until you see who invests in charter schools and realize there are lobbyists actively working to destroy public education for profit. There’s a reason why some things should not be privatized.

Charter lobby still paying for influence

Nice save - no one's going to notice you've made zero points in any of your replies now!

Zero value add again

because the person posting it is an idiot?

Yup. It’s gross.

Same with trying to dismantle USPS or privatize parts of the military, or even NASA.

These things were setup as public institutions for very clear reasons. To avoid profit being the primary goal rather than achieving objectives and to ensure public has input and accountability.

These institutions were setup that way to prevent profiteering, and now they’re being modified to allow political donors to fill their wallets.

Profit shouldn’t be the motive. The finances these things should be worried about is getting the most out of their budget, avoiding overruns, and demonstrating results.

So this is not good news for JSQ!

And how many of our public schools would have or should have closed by now if they weren’t kept on life support by an incompetent BOE and city government?

Not saying charter schools are good or bad but the idea that they don’t last as long as failing schools (even if true) isn’t a compelling argument that they’re worse than the alternative.

I can't tell if theres any official relationship, but the chair of the board works at the Kipp charter school network

The fact that they are statistically proven to fail isn't a compelling argument to not keep diverting funds from public education to fund these sham schools? lol

The teachers aren't even required to have bachelor's degrees to teach and they aren't legally required to accommodate special ed students- how could that possibly be an improvement?

They don't even require their teachers to have college degrees.

Let’s talk statistics — a Stanford study in 2015 concluded that urban charter school students perform better than their public school peers.

There are plenty of arguments that the funding could be put to better use. But the argument that charter schools are by definition worse than our failing public schools is just wrong.

“Our findings show urban charter schools in the aggregate provide significantly higher levels of annual growth in both math and reading compared to their TPS peers. Specifically, students enrolled in urban charter schools experience 0.055 standard deviations (s.d.’s) greater growth in math and 0.039 s.d.’s greater growth in reading per year than their matched peers in TPS. These results translate to urban charter students receiving the equivalent of roughly 40 days of additional learning per year in math and 28 additional days of learning per year in reading.”

(http://urbancharters.stanford.edu/download/Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf)

Wow you mean schools that are able to skim all the best students and not accept any with special needs or learning disabilities perform better than public schools that are legally required to accept and accommodate all students? You don't say!

Okay so we agree they perform better. But you still think they shouldn’t exist? Got it.

You're so close to connecting the dots buddy. Now let's work this out together - if charter schools only accept students without learning disabilities (or any other special needs that would affect a student's "performance") and at the same time public schools have to accept all students (including those with learning disabilities who may not perform as well as neurotypical students) do you really think the charter school students are performing better as a result of the quality of education? Or is it because charter schools aren't legally required to accommodate any low-performing students like public schools are?

Feel free to mention where you think the special needs students that charter schools don't have to accommodate will go once charter lobbyists successfully defund public education.

Every claim you’ve made so far is wrong. First you said charter schools perform worse. Wrong.

Now you’re saying this charter school won’t accept special needs kids. A two-minute search of Kindle Education’s website shows you’re wrong again:

“My child has an IEP. Will this school be a good fit for them?

Kindle Education is committed to serving all students, including those with special needs and learning differences. Our emphasis on personalized learning and low adult to student ratio may make us a good fit for students who experience challenges in a traditional classroom setting. If you have more specific questions about the services we provide or about your child’s specific needs, we recommend that you reach out to us using the contact information below so that we can answer your questions.”

https://www.kindleeducation.org/faqs

You keep bringing up special needs kids as if JC BOE does right by special needs kids. They canceled school for > 1 year fuck them. They canceled kids therapies, literally medically necessary therapies that by law are supposed to be provided. then they do speech therapy while wearing a mask. Or on zoom. Beyond useless. Kids didn’t get their PT. Stop using the special needs kids card because JC BOE never gave a flying fuck. Bayonne brought in kids for therapies even while they were remote. JC didn’t do that. Because they literally did not care.

I will always promote anything other than the status quo for jersey city schools.

Anything new, fucking take it because the people who run it currently are fucking morons.

PEOPLE....charter schools are just crappy public schools. There is even a name for this: "charter confusion", and people write whole PhD thesis on this topic. They pull money from the regular public schools, abuse their teachers with insane amounts of work, and so many of them close. What we need in JC is a fully funded, FANTASTIC public school system that serves every child regardless of whether they win a (rigged) charter school lottery.

I’ll bet this school does well and the other public schools don’t get worse.

If it’s all the same pot of students, overall doesn’t it mean no real change to city’s schools? Don’t they include charter schools in the overall jc statistics ? Who care is this charter school takes money away from public schools, it is also a public school teaching public school kids. Who the hell is talking about defunding the public schools ? This is a jc public school

Probably a better one.

Sure it attracts families that are smart enough to apply.

Kids at the other jsq schools have families that are not smart enough to apply. Why is that bad? There are already “good” schools and “bad” ones, why is it bad to have another good one?

I feel like it just makes people butthurt because it ends up showing that it’s not really the school that matters, it’s the kids.

But that also shouldn’t matter in terms of policy. Cuz kids who do poorly would do poorly in any school. Not everyone is an A student or even a B student.

https://www.insidernj.com/press-release/a-new-diverse-by-design-6th-12th-grade-public-charter-school-is-approved-to-open-in-jersey-city-in-the-fall-of-2023/

And yet your solution is to bring in charter schools that serve NO special needs students and continue to pull much needed funding from public education and make the existing problem worse?

Your issue is with JC but you’re so emotional you’re talking out of your ass and acting like dismantling public schools is the solution. This is exactly how it works when social services are preyed upon by corporations for profit - do whatever they can to make it so bad it becomes a privatized for-profit service and your just the kind of shmuck to lap it up. There are active lobbyists making this happen with political ties - you’re just eating it up.

All of this is widely known if you know remotely anything about how charter schools operate and the political influence they’ve worked so hard to gain.

I’ve worked in education - they can write whatever they want on the website because it’s a private company. But if your kid has needs they cannot accommodate you will have to send your child elsewhere. That is just how it works because they are not set up to serve special needs nor are they legally required to accommodate all students. They can write whatever they want on their website so people who know nothing will believe it.

Perhaps look up some information about charter schools vs public schools instead of copying and pasting random shit you googled?

It’s honestly disturbing to see how easily swindled some people are.

The kids in this school will be JC kids getting a JC public school education.

Our school system is lacking the actual infrastructure of school buildings. This new physical school addresses a critical infrastructure need, and will reduce overcrowding in the schools.

The public funding the school will use is an appropriate use of public school funds since its a JC public school.

The only thing you mentioned that is a downside is possible lack of IEP services, which you're not even sure about. But even if there is no IEP or special ed services, it is not a loss of services to the entire district, as this is a new school. And here is from their website anyway , seems like they will have some services"My child has an IEP. Will this school be a good fit for them?
Kindle Education is committed to serving all students, including those with special needs and learning differences. Our emphasis on personalized learning and low adult to student ratio may make us a good fit for students who experience challenges in a traditional classroom setting. If you have more specific questions about the services we provide or about your child’s specific needs, we recommend that you reach out to us using the contact information below so that we can answer your questions."

Yea I am emotional about the schools here. There was a lot of damage done that did not need to occur. A lot of my patients got screwed due to stupid, fearful and selfish decisions. I myself can pay for the privilege of a good education for my kids. I can pay for a private school that actually opened and let the kids in to school. Status quo of JC public schools will not provide a great education to majority of kids in JC. Whats the fix? Keep doing the same shit? This school will likely provide a good education to the kids who are enrolled in it. Thats why I support it.

I am not at all convinced that this is a black and white issue. Charter schools BAD! is not helpful when its pretending that JCBOE good! I am for increasing the educational attainment of the kids of JC, whether or not that involves the maintenance of current school governance, school administration structure , political structure etc. I am not anti union or pro privatization, but the current setup does not meet the needs of JC. The state could take over, I would be happy. A completely new school board I would be happy. Mayoral control of school board, I would be happy. JC needs better outcomes and a mix of charter and non charter schools seems like a good idea to me. We already have charters and they seem to generally have better outcomes.

I dont know what your plan is to improve outcomes, besides complaining about every new school being constructed. I think neither one of us is directly involved in making these decisions, so our argument is moot... but yea I think continued experimentation is warranted in JC.

Another valueless comment. I’m not against new schools being built I’m against charter schools replacing public schools that serve all students which is what this leads to. Do some research on how charter schools operate and why they hire lobbyists. Or how they swept in after hurricane Katrina and destroyed the LA public school system there. It’s a concentrated effort to dismantle public Ed for corporate profit and you’re eating it up.

A corporation has even less oversight than a public school so this is a bad solution if that’s your issue.

If school infrastructure is the issue maybe look at what we spend money on in this city and all the handouts developers get while they “make the city better”. How much money was that Rook the JCPD bought? How much was the pedestrian plaza that took years to build and is already getting torn up?

Cut overinflated administrator salaries. Switch to a school voucher system. Rather than put the burden on property owners, perhaps school funding should be switched to so that everyone in the city contributes via income tax. Why do we even have a county levy and a municipal levy. There should be consolidation. There are a lot of things that can be done. The overall school budget increased compared to last year and not all of that was due to state cuts. It’s not just about me, it’s about the retiree who spent their life in Jersey City and now has to move because they can no longer afford it. It’s about the single working class mom struggling to make ends meet and now has to pay more money in property taxes. People just need to make the same effort in getting change that they spend trying to get certain politicians fired because of a traffic accident where they showed wanton disregard for human life. Arguably, the school levy affects their lives more.

What data do you have to prove charter schools don’t perform any better than horrible 49% reading, 33% math JCPS produce?

> charter middle schools that hold lotteries are neither more nor less successful than traditional public schools in improving student achievement, behavior, and school progress.

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104029/pdf/20104029.pdf

Also Jersey City already has charter schools. Why would more charter schools improve our already broken schools.

Because Jersey City public schools are awful and more choice is needed?

This sub whenever public schools come up: HOW DARE YOU RAISE MY TAXES FOR THESE PIECE OF SHIT STUPID PUBLIC SCHOOLS BURN THEM ALL DOWN ASFGGSXVSXZEF

This sub when someone listens and tries something different: NO EVIL CORPORATIST CHARTERS EVER 😤😤😤

Here’s most recent data from our neighbors in NYC. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2019/08/23/2019-new-york-test-scores-charter-school-students-compared-to-public-school-students

“63 percent of the charter students in grades 3 through 8 passed the state math exam this year, compared to 46 percent in traditional public schools. And 57 percent of charter students were proficient in English Language Arts, compared to 47 percent in regular public schools.”

Also important to note majority of NYC charters cater to low income Black and Hispanic students, historically lower achievers than White and Asian students. Charters are popular for this very reason and very necessary when public schools are such shitshow.

What percentage of students in JCPS have special needs to base your entire argument on some likely tiny fraction outlier? You do know that charters are lottery based right? Like random, luck of the draw admission. In NYC charters cater predominantly to low income black and hispanic students bc their zoned public schools are such shitshow which is the case in many poor or working class urban neighborhoods. Apparently to you it’s some fraudulent capitalist endeavor but the reality is the charter students outperform their public schools peers in NYC.

You must be a JCEA union member or Norma’s groupie. Study your history of JCPS on why it’s easier to send a man to Jupiter than fix the corrupt and dysfunctional public schools. Let’s throw more money at the incompetent idiots bc $1B is not enough to make schools FANTASTIC.

Ah yes, “all of this is widely known” — a reliable proxy for real data!

> Charter schools dont actually perform any better than public schools, and actually result in a net decrease in educational attainment because there is less money for public schools.

Meanwhile this study found during that period that nyc charters enrolled significantly less esl students, disabled students, and poor students, and had 8 times the rate of suspensions.

https://www.uft.org/sites/default/files/attachments/City_and_State_Excluding_Charters_12.11.19.pdf

This investigation found that 155 of 183 charter schools had disciplinary policies in violation of federal or state civil rights laws in New York city

https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-charter-schools-are-illegally-pushing-out-difficult-kids-report-alleges

This investigation found that success academies, which was mentioned in the article you posted, expelled massive numbers of students. At one school 1 in 5 students who started at that school was expelled by the end of the year

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/success-academy-fire-parents-fight-disciplinary-policy-article-1.1438753

Which begs the question of why charters close so frequently. In places like Hoboken and Jersey City, it’s not for lack of demand. Start with the extreme hostility of the existing public school system. The pressure on elected leaders to get rid of charters is intense.

honestly as long as this superintendent wants raises for doing nothing