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Time for NJ Opportunity Scholarship Act is NOW

By Christy Davis Jackson
President E3, Excellent Education for Everyone

The NJ Spotlight Opinion Piece “Voucher Bills Fall Prey to False Advertising and Small Thinking” is a subjective commentary by Mr. MacInnes which mischaracterizes both the intent of the Opportunity Scholarship Act and the urgency of the need for OSA.

As a mother living in the City of the Township of Orange , with a young son of school age, I am outraged that another generation of children from my community is a prisoner of chronically failing schools. Our urban children have no access to the opportunities afforded to many of the s uburban counterparts, to attend a school that will prepare them to go to college, or get meaningful employment that will enable them to support their families, and contribute to our communities. While I am privileged to be a middle class parent who can afford to send my son to an independent school of our choice, it is a significant economic challenge to do so in New Jersey .

Mr MacInnes’ comments are an intellectualized response to a serious effort on behalf of honorable and passionate people in New Jersey to solve an educational crisis in our urban communities. I take issue with Mr. Mac Innes’ characterization of these good people as “not motivated primarily by the desire to help the poorest kids in the poorest districts”. It is erroneous to suggest that OSA scholarships, in either legislative form, are about funding private schools. OSA provides scholarships to participating out of district public schools, and religious and independent schools in or out of district. To say that OSA doesn’t target the poor because the median income is 2.5 times the Federal poverty level, when NJ has one of he highest costs of living in the country is decidedly misleading.

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NJ: Vouchers Strike Back

“Long Debated, Legislature Revives Talk of School Vouchers”
by John Mooney
NJ Spotlight
New Jersey Spotlight, NJ
March 16, 2012
After a winter hiatus, a trimmed-down Opportunity Scholarship Act proposal is back in the legislature with a prominent new sponsor in the state Assembly but the loss of another in the Senate.
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/12/0316/0145/

After a winter hiatus, a trimmed-down Opportunity Scholarship Act proposal is back in the legislature with a prominent new sponsor in the state Assembly but the loss of another in the Senate.

State Assemblyman Angel Fuentes (D-Camden) yesterday said he filed a new bill that would include just seven districts as part of the pilot to provide scholarships — or vouchers — to low-income students to go to schools of their choice, public or private.

More notably, the second primary sponsor on the bill is state Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), the Assembly majority leader who has said he would support a smaller pilot and now has his name attached to one.

“I am not a believer in vouchers , but I do believe in a few select communities where children are a prisoner of their own poverty and denied a right to an education,” Greenwald said yesterday.

The new Assembly bill comes a week after state Sen. Thomas Kean Jr. (R-Union) filed a new version of the bill he has long sponsored but also in fewer districts. But it was missing a key sponsor, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), the longtime and prominent backer of the bill who gave it key support on the Democratic side.

Lesniak yesterday said he dropped his sponsorship for a variety of reasons, including the closing by the Archdiocese of Newark of another prominent Catholic school in his hometown of Elizabeth. St. Patrick High School, the basketball powerhouse, might have been saved if a voucher bill passed, he said. The

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