NJ Democrats keep fighting on civil service changes
New Jersey Democrats are seeking to invalidate new rules adopted by the Christie administration that they say threaten to upend the foundation of the state’s civil service system. (Seidman/The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Planning Board – Meeting Schedule June 16 & 17 – Valley Hospital Application
PLANNING BOARD
AMENDMENT TO MEETING SCHEDULE
Special Public Meetings: June 16 & June 17, 2014
In accordance with the provisions of the “Open Public Meetings Act,” please be advised that the Planning Board has scheduled special public meetings for:
Monday, June 16, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at the Benjamin Franklin Middle School, 335 North Van Dien Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey, at which time the Board will receive instructions regarding the proposed H-Hospital Zone amendment to the Master Plan.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at the Benjamin Franklin Middle School, 335 North Van Dien Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey, at which time there will be Board deliberation and vote only concerning the proposed H-Hospital Zone amendment to the Master Plan. Doors will be open at 6:30 p.m.; all ingress into the auditorium will be limited to the doors located at the rear of the auditorium.
The Board may take official action during these Work and Public Meetings.
Jane Wondergem
Secretary to the Board
Reader says Valley Construction will create a Mass Exodus from Benjamin Franklin Middle School
Based on the statement made by the Board of Ed. president at one of the meetings, you really have to wonder where her( and the board’s) head is at. If I had a child in BF, and this goes thru, I would be looking to transfer.
Reader Points to Conflict of Interest Between BOE and Valley
Between the half-mil with which Valley cheaply bought the BOE and the glaring conflict of interest represented by the Superintendent’s physician-wife’s relationship with the hospital, the Board would have done better to “recuse itself” than to force its president to make appallingly inaccurate statements (“no problem! bring it on!”) so destructive to children and so exciting to Valley that Valley’s legal team quoted her in its final (thank goodness), unexpected greatest-hits slide show on Monday night. This was the definition of sellout.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an African-Americancivil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909.[3] Its mission is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination”.[4] Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common termcolored people.
NAACP Stoops to defending Animal Cruelty
Reader says The kids who tortured the cat , Depravity is color blind
The kids who tortured the cat will not beheld responsible. The kids are obviously very disturbed. Two are siblings.
In The Record there is an article about the NAACP And animal rescue leader meeting. How is this an NAACP issue? Depravity is color blind.
At the end of the article the NAACP man warns the animal activist to “choose her words carefully and be mindful of race during her activism.”
NAACP leader, animal rights advocate meet to discuss Paterson tortured cat incident
JUNE 11, 2014, 9:49 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2014, 11:25 PM
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/naacp-leader-animal-rights-advocate-meet-to-discuss-paterson-tortured-cat-incident-1.1033436#sthash.jqtae35a.dpuf
Reader says It does not take much to turn a real estate market and we are likely on the tipping point.
Perhaps the most interesting indication of this is the No Valley and No Apartment signs that appear on the lawns of houses that have recently sold to young families moving into town. They came here for the schools and the neighborhood feel of the town. Then, they learn that what they just bought into is under the threat of the massive hospital and apartment complexes. Having just sunk their young fortunes into new homes, they are justifiably worried.
Think now of what happens if that worry becomes known to those currently looking. Through this blog, for instance, or newspaper coverage of the planning board hearings or letters to the editors. Real estate can very quickly take a nose dive in Ridgewood when towns in close proximity offer almost as much without the looming risk.
If you were 30-35 again, with two young children and enough money to buy a house in Ridgewood, and there was a chance Ridgewood was going to turn into something more along the lines of the hustle and bustle found in a small city sometime in the next 5 to 10 years, would you risk your hard earned down payment money on Ridgewood property? And for those of us in the 45 to 55 range, on the verge of being empty nesters, do we risk riding the property market to the bottom when we can cash out now?
No, make no mistake, Ridgewood is very much on a precipice formed by the intersection of a monolithic hospital concerned about its future revenue stream, developers who want to increase their profits and well meaning Villagers who are buying into false arguments and fears generated by the Hospital and developers.
EX-BORDER AGENTS: IMMIGRANT FLOOD ‘ORCHESTRATED’
‘We are not gullible enough to believe thousands came without aid and assistance’
Published: 13 hours ago
An organization of former Border Patrol agents Wednesday charged that the federal government, under the administration of President Obama, is deliberately arranging for a flood of immigrant children to arrive in America for political purposes.
“This is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor illegal alien children at risk for purely political purposes,” said the statement released by the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.
“Certainly, we are not gullible enough to believe that thousands of unaccompanied minor Central American children came to America without the encouragement, aid and assistance of the United States government,” the officers said.
“Anyone that has taken two six- to seven-year-old children to an amusement park can only imagine the problems associated with bringing thousands of unaccompanied children that age up through Mexico and into the United States.”
Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2014/06/ex-border-agents-immigrant-flood-orchestrated/#rkIPz8DkGt4bxGHB.9
file photo by Maura McMahon DeNicola in Ridgewood PJ Blogger with Joe Kyrillos
Post-CA Tenure Decision, Kyrillos Seeks Repeat in New Jersey
Jun. 11 Education, Joe Kyrillos, National, Uncategorized 1 comment
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Joe Kyrillos at 2012 RNC in Tampa, Florida
Following an earth-shattering decision by the California state court striking down that state’s tenure law, state Senator Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) says he’s reaching out to an advocacy group involved in the West Coast case to help accomplish the same result in New Jersey.
He’ll start by re-introducing S-2171, “The School Children First Act.”
“This legislature should seize this opportunity and momentum to pass full tenure reform to improve education and lower property taxes in New Jersey,” Sen. Kyrillos said in a statement released by the Senate GOP office. “This overhaul bill allows public school districts to best serve their students and communities by ensuring only the best teachers, administrators and staff members are the ones educating and nurturing our next generation.”
Past efforts have been examples of tokenism at best and a waste of time for the more cynical among you.
Kyrillos says his legislation would accomplish the following:
· Eliminate last-in, first-out (LIFO) seniority protections that force schools to ignore educator effectiveness and layoff high-performing younger teachers, instead of more expensive, ineffective ones;
· Require school districts to adopt merit-based compensation schedules, whereby public school employees are paid and retained based on their performances, contributions and growth;
· Allow school principals to assign teachers to classrooms where they will be effective; and
· Alleviate tenure-law obstacles for school districts seeking to become more efficient by consolidating or merging services.
It’s a tough issue, Save Jerseyans.
Why? Because it’s easy enough to say “let’s reward good teachers and reform/penalize the bad ones,” but how do you effectively evaluate teacher performance when the good teachers find their classrooms filled with the most challenging students on an annual basis?
There’s also an emerging consensus among everyone NOT in government that testing is close to useless.
School choice is the only solution. The free market is the only fair way to judge any professional’s abilities. Anything else is probably a net negative for hardworking teachers and a net neutral for the kids we’re trying to help. Just one former student’s opinion…
– See more at: https://savejersey.com/2014/06/kyrillos-california-tenure-new-jersey/#sthash.3GPFmDS8.dpuf
Judge Rejects Teacher Tenure for California
By JENNIFER MEDINAJUNE 10, 2014
“Substantial evidence presented makes it clear to this court that the challenged statutes disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students,” Judge Rolf M. Treu of Los Angeles Superior Court wrote in the ruling. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience.”
The decision, which was enthusiastically endorsed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, brings a close to the first chapter of the case, Vergara v. California, in which a group of student plaintiffs backed by a Silicon Valley millionaire argued that state tenure laws had deprived them of a decent education by leaving bad teachers in place.
Christie touts program to bring math, science teachers to New Jersey’s neediest schools
TRENTON – Gov. Chris Christie today championed “a new pipeline” to bring qualified teachers into New Jersey’s neediest schools. (Johnson/The Star-Ledger)
Ridgewood High School Teen LEADers present findings
JUNE 10, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 3:53 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
They’ve navigated the corridors of the county jail, tested the acumen of top-flight health care professionals and even grilled Bergen’s top executive with an assortment of questions.
But for the 20 students who made up the inaugural Ridgewood High School (RHS) Teen LEADS class, the most difficult assignment over the past eight months was to formulate answers to a question that has puzzled this municipality for years: How can civic participation in Ridgewood be improved?
Last Wednesday, the group of mostly RHS sophomores and juniors presented their findings of a months-long project addressing that question, which was personally issued by Mayor Paul Aronsohn last fall. Their research into local government was far from the typical “how a bill becomes a law” examination – their work included lengthy studies of a decade’s worth of election results, original surveys issued to village residents and an analysis of the raw data that was gathered.
“I’m impressed with how this turned out,” Aronsohn told the students. “This was an idea, and we didn’t know what it would look like [at the conclusion]. It took courage and vision, and you really made this happen.”
Teen LEADS is a spin-off of the original Bergen LEADS, a county-wide civic leadership program for adults. Bergen LEADS was created in 2007 by members of the Volunteer Center of Bergen County, who fashioned lessons learned from the larger Leadership New Jersey seminar into a local curriculum.
Among the many Bergen LEADS graduates is Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, who was one of the main driving forces that brought the LEADS program to RHS. Sonenfeld also highlighted the support of RHS Principal Tom Gorman, club coordinator and sociology teacher Jenna Wilson and Bergen LEADS co-director Lynne Algrant.
Over the past year, the students participated in on-site classes, meeting with Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli at the county jail in Hackensack and speaking with doctors at The Valley Hospital. In addition to meeting with Ridgewood’s mayor on Government Day, the LEADS class spent time with Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan.
“This is such a superb first class. This class would not let Donovan go, and they challenged her,” Sonenfeld said. “For those of us who are passionate about LEADS, this has been great, and we had a great first class.”
Ridgewood’s Teen LEADS, the only one of its kind in the county, was tested as a pilot program over this past school year and received funding from the Volunteer Center and the Ridgewood Education Foundation. Entry into the program was based on student applications, and the same methods will be used to grant entry to those wishing to participate next year.
Gorman indicated that school officials will consider introducing LEADS as a full-time class after the 2014-15 year. And once the test period at RHS is completed, Bergen LEADS volunteers hope to expand the teen program to other high schools.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/clubs-and-service-organizations/ridgewood-high-school-teen-leaders-present-findings-1.1032721#sthash.8wuK2sKa.dpuf
Why I’m pulling my kids out of public school
By Lynne Rigby
Sunday, June 8, 2014 6:21pm
Lynne Rigby with her husband and five children. “Today’s public school atmosphere is all about accountability and not about the actual needs of the child,’’ she writes in her open letter to Gov. Rick Scott and school officials. “Not everything in education can be quantified.’’ Lynne Rigby photo
Editor’s note: More than 150,000 people have read a posting byLynne Rigby, a 40-year-old Seminole County mother of five children, on her website, lynnerigby.com. Rigby, a former teacher, addressed it to Gov, Rick Scott and Seminole school officials. The following is a condensed version.
I am a parent of five children in Seminole County schools, aged 4 to 16. My husband and I are deeply embedded in this community. We are both successful products of Lake Brantley High School. I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1995 and came back to Seminole to teach kindergarten; he is currently the pitching coach for the Lake Brantley varsity baseball team. We stayed here so our kids would be blessed with a similar educational experience.
This year has been completely disheartening for us. You see, I’ve been okay with FCAT … show what you know, I get it … some sort of accountability. That was until this year. My third-grade son, Jackson, has had mostly As, a scattering of Bs through his Bear Lake Elementary career, much like his brothers. However, he has had the Discovery Education tests added to his school year. I saw his score on DE in first grade and it was scary low, in the 20s. But his teacher said he was doing fine. Same thing in 2nd grade, though knowing that FCAT was looming, I began to panic a bit.
We read out loud together each night through the summer, talked about the books as we read, and I believed that would pay off on the first DE test of third grade because he was doing really well. I was wrong. His first DE test was similar to others, but now his teachers started panicking because their pay depends on it. He was sent to remedial LEAP and ultimately a math pullout group. All the while he has had mostly As and a few Bs.
Disconnect. That’s the word that plays over in my head. How can he do all his homework on his own, never struggling with any topic and get such a low percentile on a test? Then, an epiphany. What is the validity of this test? How does it relate to our curriculum?
https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/why-im-pulling-my-kids-out-of-public-school/2183493
Key to student success lies in the home
JUNE 10, 2014, 5:17 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 5:17 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER DE VINCK
THE RECORD
Christopher de Vinck is the language arts supervisor at Clifton High School in New Jersey. His 13th book is “Moments of Grace” (Paulist Press).
LET’S CREATE a national program called “No Child Left behind,” and flood the schools with standardized tests. Let’s change the name and call it “Race to the Top.” Let’s put kids in uniforms. Let’s increase the school day. Let’s pay teachers less money. Let’s pay teachers more money. Let’s create charter schools. Let’s create schools just for boys. Let’s create schools just for girls. Let’s have kids pray in school. Let’s create common core standards. Let’s blame the college teacher-education programs. Let’s blame the teachers. Let’s blame the parents. Let’s give the governors and the business community the keys to the schools. Let’s flood the schools with technology. Let’s call schools boring. Let’s blame the curriculum.
Don’t you see how foolish we have been? Don’t you see that all of these initiatives are focused on the politics of education and not education? Don’t you realize that none of these attempts has made any difference in the education of children for the past 40 years?
Based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the nation’s report card), the average reading scores for 17-year-olds today is not significantly different from the scores in 1971.
For the past 43 years our nation has been dodging the real reasons why our system of education has been stagnant.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-key-to-student-success-lies-in-the-home-1.1032741#sthash.mqxaCdMj.dpuf
Ridgewood man fights cancer in the ring
JUNE 11, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY JOHN PETRICK
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Temporarily spent from his daily regimen of bag work, a panting and sweaty Anthony Daniels takes off the gloves and decompresses at the lip of a boxing ring inside a Paramus gym. But the fierce opponent he has been contending with the last three years never rests.
“Most of the time, I am very sick, but I do this anyway,” said the 23-year-old Ridgewood resident, who appears in good physical shape but whose battled-hardened gaze and ashen complexion reflect those of a guy who has been through the mill. “I do it for myself. I do it for my family.”
It was bad enough when a leg injury from a car accident killed Daniels’ dreams of playing hockey in college and maybe beyond. But what could he do? He decided to start fresh, and transfer from William Paterson to Fordham University. He even toyed with the idea of eventually going to law school. Today, planning for the future isn’t quite as easy. Doctors say his life expectancy may not exceed five years.
After bouts of vertigo and intense head-to-toe itching, Daniels was diagnosed on Dec. 22, 2011, with Hodgkin’s lymphoma while he was a college sophomore. The disease is a cancer of the lymphatic system in which cells grow abnormally and eventually compromise the body’s ability to fight infection.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/health-news/ridgewood-man-fights-cancer-in-the-ring-1.1032936#sthash.C2lvoGwz.dpuf
Readers say Public Sector Pensions Have Become Nothing more than well-organized defrauding of taxpayers
This is nothing more than well-organized defrauding of taxpayers. The unions have full time officials and lawyers looking for every way possible to way to increase benefits whether they are sustainable or not. It’s easy to spend other people’s money through these generous contracts; until it runs out. Then you become Detroit or Stockton.
It worked when Public Sector salaries were a fraction of Private Sector salaries and people’s life expectancy was 65 years or less and our country was growing consistently and robustly. Now that the Public Sector has enjoyed tremendous growth both in the number of people employed by all levels of governement as well as dramatically increased salaries, life expectancy continues to improve, and growth in the US is slowing and maturing it is not sustainable. Simple economics tells you that fewer people (private sector) can not support more people (public sector) indefinitely. It just can’t. If I was a public employee I would be very diligent in keeping my eye on what is already happening around the country with towns, cities, and even counties declaring bankruptcy and eliminating all previously given retirement benefits. The courts have ruled that it can be done and it has been done and will continue to be done as the benefits burden simply overwhelms town, city, county, and state budgets.
Life expectancy is now +80 years, not 65 years or less. That means a private sector employee who retires at 65 has an average retirement of 15+ years. For a public safety official retiring at 52, or a teacher retiring at 61, they collect benefits for many more years than that (20-30 years) now despite the fact that they haven’t contributed as much as they end up taking out of the system. The benefits are either too generous, or should start after 65 years so as not to incent these workers or their municipal employers to just put in extra time on the job to get their full pension.
The model is no longer practical. Can we convert them to 401k? Give them what should have been paid in to a retirement plan and let them manage it. They are the ones who should be responsible for making the money last till they are 90.
One local resident might have 45 years or pension based on 22 years of service.
