NJ Education Round-Up for 2/23/13
Here's the plan: each Saturday, I'll have a round-up of the week's education news in New Jersey. I'm hoping this is the place all you non-eduwonky "dirty hippies" go to get your Garden State education news in one easily digestible post.Of course, I will be shamelessly linking to my own blog, Jersey Jazzman. But I'll also be relying heavily onMother Crusader's Darcie Cimarusti, NJ Farmer Blog's Bob Grundfest, the Education Law Center's News Page,NJ Spotlight, Rutgers professor Bruce Baker's SchoolFinance 101, and a variety of other state and national sources.
Look for a new post every Saturday. We hope you enjoy this feature!
Here's the week's news:
- LEAP: Everything That's Wrong With NJ's Charter School System in One Example:
There's been a flurry of reporting this past month about the LEAP Academy Charter School in Camden. Going viral this week was the news that LEAP's "executive chef" (did your junior high have an "executive chef"?) got a $24K raise and now makes $95K a year, way over the going rate. That he also happens to be the live-in boyfriend of the school's founder, Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, makes the story that much more delectable.
But as tasty as this nugget is, it's only part of the story at LEAP. It turns out the school lost it's non-profit status back in 2010, news that only surfaced this past month. That put $8.5 million in bonds, issued by the Delaware River Port Authority and guaranteed by Rutgers-Camden (where Bonilla-Santiago is a faculty member) at risk. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports LEAP's non-profit status has been reinstated, but the question remains: what
Look for a new post every Saturday. We hope you enjoy this feature!
Here's the week's news:
- LEAP: Everything That's Wrong With NJ's Charter School System in One Example:
There's been a flurry of reporting this past month about the LEAP Academy Charter School in Camden. Going viral this week was the news that LEAP's "executive chef" (did your junior high have an "executive chef"?) got a $24K raise and now makes $95K a year, way over the going rate. That he also happens to be the live-in boyfriend of the school's founder, Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, makes the story that much more delectable.
But as tasty as this nugget is, it's only part of the story at LEAP. It turns out the school lost it's non-profit status back in 2010, news that only surfaced this past month. That put $8.5 million in bonds, issued by the Delaware River Port Authority and guaranteed by Rutgers-Camden (where Bonilla-Santiago is a faculty member) at risk. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports LEAP's non-profit status has been reinstated, but the question remains: what
