Gov. Christie signs bill allowing private companies to build schools in needy areas

CAMDEN — Gov. Chris Christie today signed the first of what he hopes will be a series of education reforms: a measure giving private nonprofit companies the authority to build a total of 12 schools in Newark, Camden and Trenton.

"Just like charter schools that are already operating all over New Jersey," he said in the auditorium of Landing 

Square School in Camden, "these renaissance schools will be subject to strict accountability by the 

Department of Education in meeting the bottom line, which is improving student achievement."

The Republican governor first visited the school on a broiling day in June to unveil the legislation, called the Urban Hope Act. He was joined today by Camden Mayor Dana Redd, a Democrat who has worked with him on education issues, as well as Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), a sponsor.
Norcross said the bill in its final form won the support of the New Jersey Education Association, which has tangled with Christie on other issues.
"It’s about those children standing behind us," Norcross said, referring to dozens of students in blue polo shirts.

NJEA spokesman Steve Baker said in an interview that the union opposed the original bill because it called for private for-profit companies to run the schools, unraveled tenure rules and loosened certification requirements for teachers in renaissance schools.

"These are not charter schools," Baker said, "but more akin to charter schools than the original version of the bill, which would have been more like private schools receiving public funding."
The school projects will not be subject to public bidding requirements, but will have to abide by prevailing wage rules.

"Part of the idea here ... is we want to get this thing move quickly and we do not want to get weighed down in bureaucratic red tape," Christie said, adding that his Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf can provide adequate oversight.

The Schools Development Authority is responsible for construction in these and other low-income districts, but many projects have been stalled since Christie took office — and no schools have been built to replace those that are crumbling or overcrowded. Christie said he wouldn’t ask the public to entrust the SDA, once rife with wasteful spending, to borrow more money for construction projects.

"This is an innovative idea that allows us to partner with folks who will bring capital to the table to build these schools," Christie said. "I inherited what I inherited with the SDA."

Christie said he hopes the bipartisan cooperation that passed the bill through the Legislature will continue with other parts of his education reform package. "This is one of the first acts that we’re going to take and I am confident and determined that we will take more," he said.

Christie’s other education efforts — to overhaul a 100-year-old teacher tenure law, offer higher salaries to the best educators and give vouchers for students in failing public schools to attend private and parochial schools — have not won approval from lawmakers.

By Jenna Portnoy/Statehouse Bureau