It is a paradox of inverse proportions: A town whose school district has less than a 1 percent stake in a proposed law to help poor public students nonetheless emerging as the legislation’s most fervent promoter.
A rally-like Senate committee hearing in March on the steps of the Statehouse Annex, for instance, turned out some 800 Lakewood residents in support of the so-called voucher bill, which would give low-income students scholarships to leave failing public schools. Of the dozen or so speakers who testified that day, more focused on Lakewood than any other municipality. Even one of the measure’s five sponsors is a Lakewood Township Committee member.
Barely any of Lakewood’s public school students will see a voucher; and still, “This piece of legislation will help us more than any other town,” according to Republican state Sen. Robert Singer, who is also a Lakewood committeeman.
To understand why is to understand Lakewood.
While the other failing districts are expecting vouchers to move their students into private schools, this Central Jersey town is looking for money to keep them there — and the pot is large.
In Lakewood, private school students outnumber their public school counterparts four to one — a unique situation enhanced by the fact that they also comprise up to 20 percent of all low-income private school students in the state, far more than any other municipality, according to the latest U.S. Census data. Match that population with an inconspicuous addendum to the bill that reserves 25 percent of the $360 million in school vouchers for low-income students already in private schools, and Lakewood actually stands to win big — about a fifth of some 10,000 to 15,000 vouchers worth $90 million. Such a stake not only explains the township’s formidable lobbying presence in Trenton but laminates it as the poster child for what public education backers and unions see as wrong with the pending legislation.
“It exemplifies our fundamental objections to this bill statewide,” said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, a public education advocacy group. “Instead of helping public schools, it’s sending a significant amount of public dollars to religious schools.”
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2 Responses
In other words, it is returning the money which is stolen from us !
This is typical liberalism where they steal peoples money in the form of excessive taxes and then when the taxpayers want to use THEIR money for their childrens education, they are told they have no right to government “giveaways”.
This is not “the free market” and it is NOT any ‘welfare’ or anything like that.
It is money they are paying already and not getting to use, for THEIR children.
And it has nothing to do with the “state paying for religious edication” it is people using THEIR
money to pay for what those people have a right to use it and should not be paying such high taxes in the first place.