Back to School: E-Books and a Healthier Food greet Students
Libraries at Benjamin Franklin and George Washington Middle Schools and Ridgewood High School will lend electronic books starting this fall. The Board approved funds for approximately 200 new e-books, which may be borrowed and downloaded to a variety of e-ink devices. The schools will also make available to students a limited number of ereaders for borrowing.
Also new this school year are revisions to the school lunch system, including the establishment of individual online accounts for all students and changes in menu items and portion sizes as mandated by new guidelines of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Look for more information to come on the lunch program and electronic library books.
The Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Daniel Fishbein are interested in hearing residents’ thoughts and concerns. To facilitate dialogue, they are inviting residents to drop in for casual conversation and coffee several times during the 2012-2013 school year.
The first Coffee and Conversation will take place on Wednesday, September 12, from 7-8:30
p.m. at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, floor 3.
Other Coffee and Conversation dates are November 14, January 16, 2013 and April 3, 2013.
Please come, and bring your questions, suggestions, comments and concerns.
STUDY: States over $4 trillion in debt
August 28, 2012 | 10:23 am
America’s 50 states are collectively over $4 trillion in debt according to a new study by an independent, non-partisan think tank.
State Budget Solutions‘ third annual State Debt Report shows that aggregate state debt fell from $.24 trillion last year to $4.19 trillion this year. State Budget Solutions’ debt calculations include a state’s regular debt, the fiscal year 2013 budget gap, outstanding unemployment trust fund loans, unfunded other post employment benefit liabilities, and the state’s unfunded pension liabilities.
Rutgers Poll: 64% of voters say they don’t care Christie wasn’t VP pick
Despite all the talk from the media seem no one cares
As New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie prepares to give the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) today, New Jersey voters do not expect his latest moment on the national stage will benefit the Garden State’s image, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.
While nearly a third believes Christie’s address will enhance New Jersey’s image with the rest of the country, 46 percent think it will make no difference; 14 percent say Christie’s speech will hurt the state’s image.
That presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney failed to choose Christie as his running mate also elicits mostly yawns from voters: 64 percent say that it does not matter that Christie was not selected, a quarter are pleased with the outcome and only 10 percent are disappointed. (Staff, PolitickerNJ)
Heavy Marijuana Use in Teen Years May Lower IQ Later Study found those who smoked in adolescence lost roughly 8 points on IQ tests
By Jenifer Goodwin
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) — Teens who start smoking marijuana regularly experience what appear to be permanent declines in their IQs and other aspects of mental function, new research finds.
The study included information on more than 1,000 people born in New Zealand in 1972-1973. Participants took IQ and other mental functioning tests at age 13 — before any had started smoking marijuana — and then again at age 38.
Every few years, starting at age 18, participants were also asked about their use of marijuana and assessed for marijuana dependence. Marijuana dependence is defined as someone who feels they need to smoke more and more marijuana to get the same effect, who has tried to quit but can’t or who keeps using even though the habit is causing them problems, such as with their health, family, work or school.
About 5 percent reported using marijuana more than once a week before age 18 or were considered marijuana-dependent at one or more points during the study.
Those who started smoking marijuana heavily as teens — meaning at least once or week — or were diagnosed with marijuana dependence before age 18 and who continued to smoke into adulthood showed an average 8-point drop in their IQs by age 38.
Poll: Consumer confidence takes a hit in New Jersey
The number of New Jerseyans who say they are better off financially now than they were last year has dropped, according to a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University survey.
The university’s PublicMind poll found 26 percent of residents say they are in a better financial spot than they were last year – down six points from January 2012, according to the survey.
The poll found no change from January of people who report being worse off, according to the survey, which also reports that more residents – 26 percent – say they expect to be worse off financially in the upcoming year than the 19 percent surveyed believed so in January. (Arco, PolitickerNJ)
Ridgewood High School drops eight spots in rankings
FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Ridgewood High School (RHS) has dropped eight spots in the past two years in a biennial ranking of New Jersey’s top 100 public high schools.
Ranked No. 20 in 2010, RHS is now No. 28, according to New Jersey Monthly’s list, available online now and in its print September issue. The high school has fallen steadily in the rankings over the past four years, after being ranked seventh in 2008.
It was ranked No. 24 in 2006 by the magazine, which has published its biennial rankings since 1992.
This year, New Providence High School in Union County ranked at the top. The former top school, Millburn High School in Essex County, dropped to eighth.
In Bergen County, six schools surpassed RHS on the list: Tenafly (3), Glen Rock (4), Park Ridge (14), Ramapo (17), Pascack Hills (18) and Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale (22).
The internet: Command and control
By Daniel Thomas, Richard Waters and James Fontanella-Khan
Future of digital world subject of intense debate to determine if it really will be for everyone
The man in the middle of the vast stadium pressed a button on a boxy old computer terminal, causing a message to flash across the darkness in front of a billion viewers scattered all over the world. This is for everyone, it said.
This was Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who helped create the World Wide Web and then surrendered control of it. The act, staged at the centre of the extravagant opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games, showed how his invention triggered a digital revolution as important as preceding scenes of industrial and social upheaval.
More than two decades after his breakthrough, the future of this digital world is the subject of intense debate to determine whether it really will be for everyone.
Feds: Too few Americans ‘turn to government for assistance’
August 27, 2012 | 2:18 pm
More Americans rely on their families for assistance than the government, so federal officials have undertaken an effort to help people to apply for federal assistance.
“Given that only 15 percent of you turn to government assistance in tough times, we want to make sure you know about benefits that could help you,” USA.gov announced today. The ”government made easy’ website has created a “help for difficult financial times” page for people to learn more about the programs.
Ridgewood Council members offer opinions on parking proposal
Monday August 27, 2012, 1:40 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Preliminary plans to construct two parking garages and a new large anchor store in the heart of the Central Business District (CBD) have been met with varying reviews, but the overriding feeling from most villagers is that the existing downtown situation needs improvement.
The proposal, as developed and presented by members of the business community earlier this month, calls for parking facilities at the corner of South Broad and Hudson streets, and another facing the Franklin Avenue corridor in the North Walnut Redevelopment zone.
Along with the parking structures, the group, which includes Chamber of Commerce members, also envisions a new storefront built on the current lot next to The Gap on East Ridgewood Avenue, according to plans unveiled during the Village Council’s work session meeting on Aug. 8.
This week, members of Ridgewood’s governing body offered their initial thoughts about the downtown proposal, weighing in on what they believed was the good, the bad, the ugly and the unknown, while offering some suggestions to make the plan more viable.
The overall pitch is laced mostly with good ideas, some council members told The Ridgewood News this week. They applauded the group for “its innovative thinking and ideas,” according to Mayor Paul Aronsohn.
Back to School: Back to School: Some Surprising Education Numbers
Lindsey Burke
August 27, 2012 at 12:25 pm
As children head back to the classrooms, let’s look at two important figures to consider this school year: 308,000 and $11,400.
308,000: Number of members lost by the National Education Association.
Education special interest groups, such as the teachers unions, are experiencing a decline in membership. As Stephen Sawchuck reports in Education Week, “by the end of its 2013–14 budget, NEA [the National Education Association] expects it will have lost 308,000 members and experienced a decline in revenue projected at some $65 million in all since 2010. (The figures are expressed in full-time equivalents, which means that the actual number of people affected is probably higher.)”
While the decline in membership appears to have shocked the NEA, the remarks of one of the union’s top officials, treasurer Becky Pringle, are even more shocking:
We’re living with a recession that just won’t end, political attacks that have turned brutal, and societal changes that are impacting us—from stupid education “reform” to an explosion of technology—all coming together to impact us in ways that we had never anticipated.
Pringle is likely referring to the reforms that Governor Scott Walker (R–WI) put into place in his state last year, giving teachers the choice to join the union or not. And it’s no surprise that the unions fear the “stupid” reforms that are underway, namely, online learning and school choice. As former New York City Schools chancellor Joel Klein wrote in The Atlantic last week:
[T]oday’s entrepreneurs know they can harness emerging technologies to reimagine teaching and learning. It’s a story as old as change itself. The candlemaker’s union wasn’t cheering Edison on.
Those reforms are even more crucial considering the amount of taxpayer dollars that will be poured into the public system this year.
$11,400: Average per-pupil, per year spending in public schools.
Students headed back to school this fall will have historically high levels of dollars spent on them in the public school system. Nationally, average per-pupil spending exceeds $11,400 this year, meaning a child entering kindergarten today can expect to have no less than $148,000 spent on his or her education by the time the child graduates high school. In all, more than $570 billion will be spent on public K-12 education this year.
Sadly, continual increases in the money spent per child and in overall spending haven’t led to increases in academic achievement. That’s due in large part to the fact that most parents still do not have control over where or how that money is spent. We continue to fund institutions—sending that money to schools—instead of actually funding children.
Imagine if a child could put those dollars in a funding “backpack” and take that $11,400 to any school—public, private, or virtual. As in every other sector of American life, we would likely see outcomes improve as a result of competitive pressure placed on the government school system. Children would have access to schools that meet their unique learning needs. Parents would be able to harness the possibilities that online learning and customized education hold for tailoring their children’s educational experiences.
For all of those reasons and more, funding portability and school choice is an important assignment for policymakers to undertake as the school year begins.
FCC eyes tax on Internet service
By Brendan Sasso – 08/26/12 06:00 AM ET
The Federal Communications Commission is eyeing a proposal to tax broadband Internet service.
The move would funnel money to the Connect America Fund, a subsidy the agency created last year to expand Internet access.
The FCC issued a request for comments on the proposal in April. Dozens of companies and trade associations have weighed in, but the issue has largely flown under the public’s radar.
The Ridgewood Board of Education will meet Monday, August 27 at 5 p.m. at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, floor 3.
Ridgewood Board of Education public meetings may be viewed as live Webcasts by pasting the following link into your computer browser:
https://www.web2.ridgewood.k12.nj.us/ilife/lhowells/boelive/
Or, link in via the Link in Live tab on the district website (www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us).
Meetings continue to be televised live on Optimum channel 77, and FiOS channel 33.
After the live streaming event, Board meetings will be archived and can be found in the BOE section of the website under “Board of Ed Webcasts.”
Gritty N.J. city of Camden to scrap police department amid budget woes
By Perry Chiaramonte
Published August 26, 2012
FoxNews.com
Crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey – often referred to as the most dangerous city in the United States—is getting rid of its police department.
In the latest example of a cash-strapped municipality taking drastic measures to deal with swollen public sector liabilities and shrinking budgets, the city plans to disband its 460-member police department and replace it with a non-union “Metro Division” of the Camden County Police. Backers of the plan say it will save millions of dollars for taxpayers while ensuring public safety, but police unions say it is simply a way to get out of collective bargaining with the men and women in blue.
“This is definitely a form of union-busting,” Camden Fraternal Order of Police President John Williamson told FoxNews.com. “This method is unproven and untested, to put your faith in an agency that doesn’t even [yet] exist.”
Ridgewood’s application for Graydon ADA ramp grant approved by county
August 27,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, while other town have pursued other more aesthetically pleasing alternatives to meeting ADA requirements despite multiple options the Village continues to push forward with the most expensive some say the union alternative .
Village attorney Matt Rogers has previously outlined the legal responsibilities of the Village to ensure that the entire facility at Graydon Park conforms to all regulations set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (https://www.northjersey.com/news/166883966_Attorney_says_Ridgewood_is_required_to_make_Graydon_Park_accessible.html )
With this in mind Village officials submitted their preliminary outline for the Graydon ramp along with their application for funding.According to the Ridgewood News ( https://www.northjersey.com/news/167352315_Ridgewood_s_application_for_Graydon_ramp_approved_by_county.html ) The design incorporates a “more stable and gradual cement incline” into the pool, as well as an accompanying aluminum railing and a new concrete sidewalk.
The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding will be included in Bergen County’s 2012 Action Plan that will be filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), If approved by HUD, funding in the amount of $55,000 .
The village initially sought $60,000 in grants to cover the roughly $76,000 project. With Village Taxpayers picking up the tab for the portion of the bill not covered by grant money.
The village manager’s office received the news that Ridgewood’s CDBG application got the county approval on Aug. 20.
