Charter Schools &
CDBG Funding
EMAIL
Updated Jan 2004
Chairman expelled; $96G must be repaid; rulings are appealed ; Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Parents: Secrecy at charter school (2/17/2003)
"By offering parents a choice in how they educate their children, Schundler said taxes can be reduced. "Charter schools can be built with no capital cost, and we can use that (building) money to lower taxes," he said. " - Home News Tribune 2/12/01, LINK Non-partisan study rips Schundler's school choice plan Published by the Gannett State Bureau 10/3/01, By LAURA KAESSINGER
"Perhaps in light of polls showing that voters are not responding positively to his tax credit plan, Mr. Schundler has recently been talking of broader solutions for public education. One is to expand the charter school program, which New Jersey adopted in 1996. The state currently has 59 charter schools, including the Golden Door in Jersey City, which Mr. Schundler founded when he was mayor there.
Mr. Schundler points to the Golden Door's successes as proof that more such schools should be established.
"They have done spectacularly, and they have surpassed the test scores of other Jersey City schools," he said. In fact, the three-year-old Golden Door has only this year caught up to the Jersey City School District in test scores, which are not among the highest in the state. In the Language Arts portion of the state- mandated test for fourth graders, Golden Door students had a mean score of 207, compared with 198 for Jersey City schools. In mathematics, Golden Door scored 183 compared with Jersey City's 187, and in science the charter school scored 207 and Jersey City scored 206." (Typical Schundler lies...)
Background......
February 1998, the State gave the ok for $9.5 million of bonds plus 30 years of
interest charges for Schundler's Golden Door Charter School paid for by JC
taxpayers. Schundler peddled the school as a community center and packaged it with
promises of five new recreation centers for each of the wards, at a cost of $4.5 million
each, so as to win City Council approval. The total bond ordinance was for $34.5 million!
At the Council meeting, 37 speakers, including myself, advised the City Council that it
was just a ploy 
since the City was over its bonding cap by at least 50%, and the state would never approve the $34.5 million in new bonds. (see CITY FINANCES) The ordinance "..passed on a 6-3 vote, after the council listened to hours of public speakers, many voicing opposition." Councilpersons Cavanaugh, Holloway, and Donnelly voted against the ordinance. (JJ 2/12/98)
Sure enough, the state didn't approve the full amount but did allow Schundler to carve out his $9.5 million for his charter school! The charter school gets 90% of what the public schools spend per student. That's enough to pay for teachers, books, supplies and rent of approximately $700,000 (JJ 5/26/98) but does not cover the full cost for principal and interest on the $9.5 million in bonds. So who's paying the difference? "Schundler said the costs of the bonds would be covered by organizations- most probably schools, day-care centers, and educational programs - that would rent the site during the day" as a community center. (JJ 2/11/98) The reality is the JC taxpayers pay.
The school is located on prime real estate at the site of the former Betz Brewery at 10th Street and Marin Blvd on the waterfront. In a JJ article dated 1/13/1998, "The Mayor's office says that the building is not being built to house Golden Door, a 500-student school that the mayor wants to open by September. (typical Schundler Lies…) The building can't be built especially for the school, because it is illegal to build a charter school with public funds, according to the state charter school law of 1995." But he did….
Steve Close, "Close Encounters", 2/13/1998
In 1999 the Golden Door Charter School had a $600,000 deficit. The school was placed on probation and threatened with loss of its charter due to numerous fiscal irregularities as noted in a recent audit. " for a second straight year, scores on the fourth-grade test at Golden Door Charter School, founded by Mayor Bret Schundler, were disappointing. About 17.8 percent of fourth graders at Golden Door, which opened in the fall 1998, achieved proficiency on the language arts section; about 12.5 percent were proficient in math, (JJ 2/7/01), which puts them in the lowest quartile, even lower than most of JC's public, elementary schools!
"Charter schools can be an engine for public-school improvement, as Schundler argues. Operating outside many of the public school constraints, they can be trailblazers, especially in the education of poorly performing students. But charter schools ought not to become just another publicly-traded company, more influenced by the goals of investors than the aims of the local community."
(See Asbury Park Press, 1/17/01… LINK)"Priscilla Petrosky, the district's associate superintendent for special education, told Anne O'Dea (Director of the state Education Department office of school choice) it's becoming almost routine for charter schools to refer parents of special education youngsters back to city schools because charters are ill-equipped to handle their children. Ellen Zadroga, who acts as the school district liaison with charter schools, also told O'Dea that some charter schools are sending kids they've labeled discipline problems back to the district.
"Of all the things I heard today, the anecdotal statements about students with special education needs and behavioral problems being sent back to the school district concern me," O'Dea said. "But frankly, I have nothing sitting in my office where a parent has said that a charter school refused to serve them."
Board of Education member Anthony Cucci suggested the state set up a system that tracks the number of students who return to traditional schools from charter schools and the reasons why they come back. ( Jersey Journal article "Epps seeks moratorium on charters " 4/3/01 )
The school to Schundler is an extension of the city to reward his political contributors. For instance, Schundler's favored attorney Colin Danzis of the Roseland law firm, Lum, Danzis, Drasco, Positan & Kleinberg billed $109,000 in "start up legal fees" at $380/hour before the school had even opened! (see CAMPAIGN FINANCES) Just like with school vouchers, city personnel on JC taxpayers' time actively organized Schundler’s charter school. In the Golden Door Charter School application, they stated that the school would be accepting students from outside Jersey City! With 30,000 public school students, they can’t find 500 to meet their standards? Interesting that the mayor's daughter goes to the Mustard Seed School in Hoboken.
"SCHUNDLER: IF CHARTER SCHOOLS CAN'T GET CDBG MONEY, NOBODY CAN! Mayor pulls millions in grants off the table, threatening programs across the city" screams the front page of the Urban News, 2/15/01, Greg Brickey reporter. His full article follows:
Schundler administration officials prevented the Jersey City Council from approving the distribution of over $14,000,000 in neighborhood CDBG funds (federal funds) after learning that three of the Mayor’s charter schools would not be funded. The controversial $875,000 allocation of Community Development Block Grant funds for charter school construction was championed by council president Tom DeGise, crossing party lines to support Republican Mayor Bret Schundler’s charter school agenda. Council members Hollaway, Cavanaugh, Bettinger, Smith, and Donnelly delivered a stinging rebuke to the council president, voting to redistribute the charter school funding amongst other eligible city projects. With the council chambers stacked with charter school supporters, DeGise waived the "no public comment" rule for resolution votes, allowing children, charter school employees, a deputy mayor, and a self described "breast feeding expert" to speak in favor of city funding for charter schools.After nearly an hour of speeches and children reading prepared statements, the council president pulled out a "compromise amendment" to the resolution, which took $150,000 from the contested $875,000 in CDBG grants and reallocated it to an unfunded project.
Schundler administration officials were clearly stunned when council members Hollaway, Cavanaugh, Bettinger, Smith, and Donnelly voted down the largely symbolic DeGise "compromise", and announced that they were introducing their own amendment to the resolution.
DeGise shook his head in rage as Cavanaugh introduced an amendment to the resolution that redistributed the $875,000 to a variety of projects approved for CDBG funding. The council voted on the amendment, passing it 5-4. But just as the council was preparing to vote to approve the amended resolution, which would have distributed over $14,000,000 in funds for city wide projects and services, the Mayor’s lawyer withdrew the resolution, plunging the council meeting into confusion and anger.
"What really blows my mind is that people are opposing the PACO charter school when all they want is $200,000!", Gaughan fumed, his voice shaking with anger, "Even if you want to punish a charter school you shouldn’t take it out on the children."
Councilman Harvey Smith answered Gaughan, his voice booming through the council chambers. "This is how some people act when they don’t get what they want. The state legislature does not support funding charter schools in this manner. We are not dealing with the intent of the legislation; we’re trying to throw bones to people. This was not an easy vote for me, its not about PACO or the Urban League, its about the intent of the law."
Spectators shook their heads in disbelief as Reverend Colon, (see
JCPA, JCIA, POLICE & MUNICIPAL COURT SECTIONS) took the charter school debate to an even lower level, saying that "It looks like we’ve gone back to the 60’s when we had all the riots between blacks and whites. We are sending the wrong message to the Hispanic community, and I hope that something doesn’t come to pass down the road that will make us all sorry."Cavanaugh stood up and blew his stack "In all my time on the council I have never been as offended as I am now by what Reverend Colon has said," he scolded. "You’ve injected racism into an issue that has nothing to do with black, white, Hispanic or anything else. For a man of God to sit here and raise the race issue is a disgrace, you should be ashamed of yourself."
"You’re an asshole," muttered Colon. (He's running on Coucil President's Tom DeGise's ticket.... we need to get rid of this low life!)
"I’m not going to sit here and let you call us racists." Cavanaugh continued, "this is not about charter schools, it's about grant money that belongs to all the wards of the city. We should use this money to build the neighborhoods up from within."
As is customary, council president DeGise got in the last word, saying that "This was clearly a move against charter schools. Homeless children celebrate the holidays in charter schools, neighborhood associations meet in them and maybe we should build more of them. If you are against charter schools then just say it. But do not color this as anything other than a move against charter schools."
During a caucus meeting held before the vote, DeGise tried unsuccessfully to cajole and coerce the council into approving the CDBG charter school funding. Comparing himself to King Solomon, DeGise suggested that the council "reach a just and fair decision that leaves everyone smiling," and then reminded them repeatedly that if they did not vote in favor of Schundler’s charter school funding, he would misrepresent them as "wanting to take money away from charter schools."
Because of the strict guidelines on how the limited pool of CDBG grant funds can be spent, several council members were unclear as to why charter schools would qualify for the funding in the first place. Councilman Harvey Smith repeatedly asked for clarification of HUD guidelines on funding charter schools, getting increasing vague answers in return. Darice Bell, the director of the Division of Community Development, told Smith that "HUD has not given us specific guidelines about charter schools, but if we can document that the community centers in the charter schools are predominately used by low to moderate income people, then HUD will not complain that we are using CDBG funds for charter schools."
Annemarie Uebbing, director of Housing, Economic Development and Commerce, added, "If HUD doesn’t like how we are spending the money, they’ll tell us. There are two things we have to demonstrate for eligibility; eliminating slums or blight, or benefit to low or moderate income persons. This has to be demonstrated in all the CDBG projects we fund."
"It’s time to stop this nonsense and use the CDBG grant money to build real community centers and recreational facilities that are open to everyone," Cavanaugh told Uebbing. Then, looking over the CDBG grant records, Cavanaugh added up the charter school funds. "If we add this grant money with previous charter school grants it brings the total up to $2.3 million in CDBG funds for charter schools in only 3 years," he said. "We are all hearing complaints that the average family in Jersey City doesn’t have access to the recreational facilities that we had as children. That $2.3 million could have built a recreation facility or a community center."
Ward D Councilman Gaughan disagreed, claiming that "the $875,000 is absolutely not enough money to build a community center. A community center costs $7-8 million, money that we have approval to take from the capital budget." Continuing, Gaughan added that, "If we used the $875,000 for a community center we would have to rehab an existing building." (What's so terrible about that for a "Distressed City"?)
"We really need to go back and look at this more closely," cautioned Ward F councilwoman Hollaway. "Why are we giving Liberty charter school another $200,000 when they haven’t even started to build what they’ve already been funded for?"
"It’s eligible for funding," DeGise shot back. "If you can get five votes against it, then go for it." The Liberty Community Charter School is run by PACO, whose executive director, Eliu Rivera, is a deputy mayor and has appeared in a paid political advertisement endorsing Council President DeGise for mayor.
"I am still totally against giving more money to Liberty charter school," Hollaway reiterated. Again DeGise answered "If you want to take money away from charter schools, then do it. If you have the votes then do it."
"We also need to look at the expansion of the Urban League charter school," continued Hollaway. "How will this impact the community living around there? Do they even know it’s being expanded? The neighborhood is already congested with parking and if this place is allowed to expand then other future projects will want the same deal. They haven’t even talked to the ward councilman, Bob Cavanaugh. Are we just going to say that because they want to expand a charter school, to hell with everyone around them? Its poor planning."
DeGise explained that the ward councilman was not consulted because "Cavanaugh has not been supportive of this initiative."
"The community is not in favor of this expansion," Cavanaugh answered. "I get calls everyday about the congestion and lack of parking there, the charter school expansion will make it even worse."
"We can’t wait for state money, we need to build some schools now," DeGise told the council, "If you just want to take money away from charter schools then why don’t you just say it!" ( As a result of the State Supreme Court decision Jersey City is receiving almost $1 Billion in aid from the State to build new schools! That was announced prior to this meeting.)
"People want to see recreation all over the city, not just in charter schools," said councilman Bettinger, "Some of the $875,000 could be used to build parks instead of charter schools. Years ago Schundler sent out literature promising to build a park on Academy Street, which is hardly a high-income area. I guess the Mayor forgot about the Academy Street Park."
Again DeGise reminded the council that "if you get five votes you can change it, if not it stays the same."
It’s now up to the Mayor to resubmit a CDBG list. By law, the council cannot propose and pass the funding on it’s own. Schundler is doubtless waiting-and applying pressure-until one member of the 5-4 majority breaks ranks."
""Charter schools," Donnelly said, "should not be funded by the city." Donnelly added that "there are programs on the grants list for battered women and the homeless that received less money than they applied for, and the CDBG grants would be better spent on those type of programs instead of charter schools." (Urban News article, 2/01)
"Groups upset over delay in CDBG funds", JJ 2/22/01
" "We need this help to run our rehabilitation program. I strongly want to express my objection to the withholding of this funding," wrote Salvation Army Capt. Carmen Diaz, director of Special Services, in a letter sent to the nine council members recently.Diaz went on to say that Mayor Bret Schundler's office pulled the funding "because of his own special interests." The Salvation Army is slated to receive $13,900 for its program.
However, the administration disputed the claims that the application was pulled for political reasons. Some of the amendments the council made, before the item's removal, would put the entire application for aid in jeopardy because the changes didn't adhere to HUD regulations, said Annemarie Uebbing, director of the city's department of Housing, Economic Development and Commerce.
Tom Gallagher, Schundler's chief of staff, said yesterday. "In terms of scale, the people of Jersey City right now spend $16 million a year for the capital construction needs of the needs of Jersey City's public) school children; $8 million comes from Jersey City taxpayers and $8 million from state aid. Traditional public schools are well funded. What's missing is the funding of charter schools.""
Jerome Lazarous's March 2001 JJ Letter to the Editor follows:
"Letters continue to appear attacking the five council persons with the courage to oppose Bret Schundler’s subtle campaign to subvert the public school system. Understandably the parents writing about one individual charter school are concerned about their children. But the focus is misdirected.
Didn’t Schundler get money for his school? Why shouldn’t they?
Now the city can see the consequence of Schundler’s exercising naked political power, reminiscent of Frank Hague, by his bypassing Title 18A:36A-10, "A charter school shall not construct a facility with public funds." Schundler morphed the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency into a builder. The JCRA issued bonds and became a landlord to Schundler’s Golden Door charter school. Ostensibly, the building is a community center open to the public but only at restricted hours and at a fee. During the council meeting, in which the JCRA was enabled to construct the facility housing the charter school, the mayor promised immediate building of community centers in each of the five other wards, a non-accomplishment.
There was a reason for the legislature forbidding public funds for building charter schools and restricting a charter to a four-year period and an optional fifth year. The charter school program in New Jersey is an experiment to be evaluated in 2002 by the state commissioner of education.
Obviously, if there were failures the state wouldn’t be saddled with these properties. The message was there. Sponsors of charter schools should not expect any change in public funding until the commissioner shall have evaluated the program and recommend the advisability of continuing, modifying, expanding or terminating the program.
When the sponsors launched the Learning Community Charter School in 1997, if expansion was inherent in the Learning Community plan, then added physical facilities should have been foreseen by its planners and there would be no crisis with misdirected ire at council persons.
If the scope of the school’s purpose was to concentrate on development in the beginning grades, then the parents can congratulate themselves because they succeeded admirably. The Jersey City school system while developing its state directed P-3 early education program should take note. If success at Learning Community is due to the high degree of concentration afforded by no distraction of older children, the parents of children in the current fourth grade face a dilemma. Was the concentration of attention on the first four grades the key to the high scores, which were achieved? Do more grades diffuse or distract from the level of concentration? Is that a cause why Schundler's Golden Door with its full range of elementary grades ranks at the bottom?
There is an immediate concern by the parents where the Learning children are to continue their education with the same measure of success. There should be similar concern in the community. It is unfortunate that the Learning Community was drawn into this failed ploy to subvert the law by an anti-public school administration, which is where their anger should be directed. Not an attack on the council members.
Are there options? Obviously the parents can struggle to provide their own resources. Entry into a well ranked public elementary school able to sustain the educational progress of these students? This is a challenge for the Jersey City Board of Education. McNair Academic has been the answer at the secondary level. Should there be a "little" McNair at the elementary level? Charter schools are public schools supported by public funds, there should be no obstacles between concerned parents who have found answers and dedicated public educators where the ongoing schooling of children is at risk. "
"Many of the groups and organizations starting charter school are comprised of well-intentioned residents seeking an alternative to the bureaucracy and arcane politics that have crippled the city's Board of Education for so long. But, in the process they seem to be creating a new set of politics centered on the creation and funding of charter schools. A politics that, given time, will work very much like the politics we are all too familiar with." ("Double duty at City Hall, Earl Morgan's JJ column 10/30/98)
FOR THE MAIN TOPICS, CLICK BELOW