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NJ Spotlight--Budget Committees in Upper and Lower Chambers Approve $34.7B Spending Plan
But even if plan passes full Legislature and goes to Christie in time, could New Jersey still be facing a government shutdown?
The budget committees in both the Assembly and the Senate voted last night to approve a $34.7 billion spending plan that increases aid to local school districts and also funds several other majority-Democrat priorities, including cancer research, tuition-aid grants, and domestic-violence prevention programs.
Yesterday’s votes put the new state budget on track to win final passage in both houses of the Legislature on Thursday, a schedule that should give Gov. Chris Christie enough time to take action well before a deadline set in the constitution that requires a balanced spending plan to be in place each year on July 1.
John Reitmeyer | June 27, 2017
Star Ledger--Democrats reveal state budget they'll send Christie that has some new twists
TRENTON -- New Jersey legislative budget committees voted Monday to spend an additional $150 million on schools in the state and shift $31 million from 'overfunded' to ones that should get more money.
The funding changes, a variation of a plan put forth by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney and state Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto earlier this month, is the centerpiece of Democrats' state budget bill, passed late Monday by the Senate and Assembly budget committees.
The $34.7 billion spending plan adds $100 million in K-12 school funding, $25 million to expand pre-kindergarten and $25 million for extraordinary special education to the $13 billion New Jersey spends annually on education funding, including $9 billion in direct support.
Samantha Marcus| Updated on June 27, 2017 at 7:01 AM Posted on June 27, 2017 at 7:00 AM
Star Ledger--Schools should teach kids about sexual assault and consent, panel argues
TRENTON -- New Jersey's college campuses might be safer if the state's middle and high schools teach students more about preventing sexual assault, including the meaning of consent, according to a panel of state experts.
The suggestion appears in the final report of the New Jersey Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault, a 39-page document released Monday.
Adam Clark| Updated on June 27, 2017 at 5:54 AM Posted on June 26, 2017 at 3:53 PM
NY Times-- How Silicon Valley Pushed Coding Into American Classrooms
At a White House gathering of tech titans last week, Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive of Apple, delivered a blunt message to President Trump on how public schools could better serve the nation’s needs. To help solve a “huge deficit in the skills that we need today,” Mr. Cook said, the government should do its part to make sure students learn computer programming.
“Coding,” Mr. Cook told the president, “should be a requirement in every public school.”
The Apple chief’s education mandate was just the latest tech company push for coding courses in schools. But even without Mr. Trump’s support, Silicon Valley is already advancing that agenda — thanks largely to the marketing prowess of Code.org, an industry-backed nonprofit group.
NATASHA SINGER| JUNE 27, 2017
The Atlantic--‘We Have to Have a Massive Revolution in Public Education in the United States’
Over the last four decades, the percentage of Americans who are solidly in the middle class has shrunk, from 61 to 50 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. Some of those who have left the middle class are doing better, and others are doing worse. As the Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson put it, “The extremes grow at the expense of the center.”
The Harvard professor and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. says that the problem stems from the American education system having failed to adapt to the 21st century’s highly globalized, highly technological economy. For those who get top-tier training, there’s opportunity for prosperity. But for those who go to poor schools and don’t graduate from college, the traditional pathways to the middle class—in particular manufacturing jobs and small-business ownership—are usually unavailable. Instead, service work has grown in its share of overall employment, and service work tends to provide very poor wages and few opportunities for growth. Though these dynamics are affecting both black and white Americans, Gates said, black Americans in particular tend to attend under-funded schools and struggle to build middle-class economic security.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/henry-louis-gates-public-education/531717/
Rebecca J. Rosen| Jun 26, 2017
Education Week--How Are Schools Monitoring Their Students on Social Media? (Videos)
Students' social posts can often transfer into the 'real world' and disrupt learning. For that reason, many school districts have began monitoring student activity on these platforms. How are school administrators keeping tabs on posts without violating free speech and privacy rights?
Carmen Rojas on June 23, 2017 2:37 PM
