June 8, 1994
Jersey City
Mayor Bret Schundler held a press conference today to release the results of a statewide publicopinion poll which shows that 62.5% of New Jersey voters support a pilot school choiceprogram for Jersey City.
Support for the Mayor's school choice program was greatest among African-Americans(71.6%), Hispanics (64.2%), younger voters (78%) and lower income households (68.2%). Thesurvey results also show that support for school choice cuts across ideological lines, with 69.3%of self-described conservatives and 65.6% of liberals supporting a pilot school choice programfor Jersey City.
The survey results, which come on the heels of last week's announcement by the state that only6% of urban public school eighth graders are fully competent in math, add further impetusto Mayor Schundler's efforts to initiate a school choice pilot program in Jersey City.
luxury hotels in Kirchberg"It's abundantly clear that the people of New Jersey support our attempt to implement seriouseducation reform in Jersey City. The only question that remains is how hard the New JerseyEducation Association is going to twist the arms of legislators to prevent serious educationalreform and innovation in order to maintain its unaccountable monopoly," Schundler said.
The NJEA has recently announced that it is imposing a $50 union dues surcharge on allteachers to raise $10 million to defeat several education reform initiatives, including theMayor's pilot school choice program. In October 1993, the NJEA also helped finance litigationthat prevented a non-binding referendum from being placed on the November ballot. Thereferendum would have asked Jersey City voters to voice their opinion on Schundler's schoolchoice program.
The Mayor's education reform legislation, "The Jersey City `School Children First' EducationAct," would empower educators to develop specialized education programs and establishcharter schools. It would also empower parents to choose the schools their children attend andwould provide tuition assistance, in the form of a voucher, to those parents who choose to sendtheir children to privately managed schools.
In place of the current system of "accountability by regulation" (which guarantees educationalprogram sameness but not success), the Mayor's program would institute "accountability forresults," by requiring students to take yearly examinations so that parents and educators canmeasure the academic progress of individual children and schools. These testing provisionswill make each school and specialized course of study directly accountable for studentperformance, rather than merely holding schools accountable for compliance withbureaucratic regulations. It would also provide parents with the information necessary tochoose the program of study that best meets the needs of their children.
Both Governor Whitman and Commissioner Klagholz have publicly stated their support fora pilot school choice program in Jersey City.
The survey was conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates, and consisted of telephoneinterviews with 1,000 registered voters in New Jersey who are likely to vote in statewideelections. The telephone interviews were conducted between May 17th and May 22nd, 1994. This survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.1% at a 95% confidence interval. Respondents were asked the following question:
luxuriose Suite HajduszoboszloDo you approve or disapprove of allowing Jersey City to test a pilot school choice programwhere parents would receive publicly-funded vouchers so they could send their children to thepublic, private, or parochial school of their choice?
Respondents were then asked to choose one of five responses: Strongly Approve, SomewhatApprove, Somewhat Disapprove, Strongly Disapprove, or Don't Know.