Sunday, July 8, 2012

Jersey Jazzman: NJ Charters: A Growing Embarrassment

Jersey Jazzman: NJ Charters: A Growing Embarrassment:


NJ Charters: A Growing Embarrassment

Cross-posted from Blue Jersey

Christie tolld the group New Jersey could be a national bellwether.

Something is very wrong with charter schools in New Jersey.

This week, the citizens and school boards of Cherry Hill and Voorhees won a major battle against a proposed charter school that neither community wanted nor needed. Blue Jersey has previously detailed the story of Regis Academy's founder, Pastor Amor Khan, an anti-marriage equity crusader and political ally of Chris Christie.

Khan admitted - and his initial application clearly showed - that he needed the charter funds that would come from local taxpayers to pay off the mortgage on the property he was attempting to buy. The property would have housed both the charter and his ministry's other operations, a clear conflict of interest the local school boards and parent activists pointed out repeatedly.

But because charter schools in New Jersey need not be approved by their local school boards, the local sending