Supporters Rally Behind School Vouchers for Poor

By GEOFF MULVIHILL, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TRENTON – New Jersey should help some of its poorest students escape run-down city schools and pay for them to go to private schools, supporters of school voucher legislation said at a Statehouse rally Monday.

The measure – which appears to face a difficult road in the Legislature – would offer big tax breaks to businesses in exchange for them donating to scholarships for children in Camden, Newark, Orange and Trenton.

Advocates contend that city public schools are not serving children well, despite extra help they receive as a requirement of a state Supreme Court mandate that all children in New Jersey receive a “thorough and efficient” education.

“We come here today to ask, to demand, that every child has a right to a quality education,” said Reginald T. Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers’ Council of New Jersey.

The bill, introduced last month, represents the most serious effort in New Jersey to use public money to support private schools and has opposition from the state’s largest teachers union.

“This legislation comes at the worst possible time for the public school students of New Jersey,” New Jersey Education Association President Joyce Powell said in a written statement. “With the state facing a $5 billion shortfall, it’s irresponsible to even consider a proposal that would drain $360 million from the public schools and our communities, and divert it to private and religious schools.”

Low-income children would be able to get annual scholarships of up to $6,000 for elementary school and $9,000 for high school under the bill. They would be able to use the money to pay tuition at private schools or out-of-district public schools.

The state would give up to $24 million in dollar-for-dollar tax credits to corporate donors in the first year of the program, an amount that would increase until it reached $120 million in the fifth year.

One sponsor, state Sen. Joseph V. Doria, D-Hudson, said he would like to start the scholarships in the four cities, but eventually expand them to other communities.

Acting Governor Codey, who is also the president of the state Senate, opposes the measure, but his spokeswoman, Kelley Heck, said Monday that he would not block it from coming to a vote.

A lot of the anger at the rally was directed at state Sen. Shirley K. Turner, D-Mercer, the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, because she has refused to give the bill a quick hearing in her committee. She said Monday that it usually takes some time to get bills onto committee agendas.