please be aware the cost of the district is about $683,000 a year which will grow, in the article it says $683,00 which may lead people to think $683.00 Thank you

Correct Trudy. In the first year, the schools will only provide grades K-2. They will add additional grades each year. So the $683,000 PLUS transportation cost represents the cost for K-2. As additional grades are added the costs will increase. Also, these monies come directly from the fixed school budget- while the pubkic schools realize no appreciable reduction in expenses, for a number of reasons.

The price per pupil amount is an average amount for all students. It costs more to educate special needs students, ESL students and high school students. These students will remain in the public school system. Also, the loss of students to charter schools will not reduce overhead expenses or substantially reduce staffing needs.

And that is only if the school is divided equally between all towns. If we have more than the 1/3 expected it will cost us more.

Trudy and LivMom: Thank you for clarifying the cost to Livingston. I corrected the number. 5/24, 9:19 a.m.

Shapiro is living in a different world. She acutally voted last night with the rest of the council on the charter school issue. I beleive she was the only one who voted in favor. I thought she agreed she should and would not partake in the vote. She needs to go.

"Board member Bonnie Granatir pressed her colleagues to take the next step in joining the state School Boards Association in support of legislation that would give towns a vote. Board members in Millburn and West Orange passed such a resolution at their meetings on Monday night, but the resolution was tabled in Livingston." why didn't we pass the resolution to require a vote in Livingston?

How about a vote on the budget with it. no, we can't do that, right? SOMEA and the NJEA should fade away and die. The public school system in NJ is abysmal to world standards.

The Livingston School website has a direct link to both Charter school applications. It has some interesting information. The petition that they attach to the application shows about 121 people in support of the charter school. When one reviews that petition you will find that only 36 Livingston residents support it. Of that amount, approximately 86% are of Asian background. This number will not surprise many of the residents in town but it should wake up Shapiro since she believes that at least 50% non-asians support the charter school. In fact, if you include all the signatures from all the towns, only 20% of non-asians support the charter school. These % do not reflect any potential mistake made my the individuals signing a petition that they may nothing about.

I think these % are reflective of any ethnic group and we should not fault the Asians who wish to have such a school but what they should instead open is a private school which many other ethnic groups have done over the past 200 years.

Please also note that many of the people who signed the petition For the charters were not told clearly what they were signing and that many of them changed their stance and signed the petition AGAINST the charters!

yes. I think some of the innocent chinese people were also being blinded and manipulated to support the charter school.

Testy11, please don't do that. The opposition to Mandarin-immersion charter school has nothing to do against people of Chinese descent or other Asians. The only person that I know of that tries to relate our opposition to be against the Asian community is Councilwoman Shapiro. I don't know why she suggested that our opposition created division among ethnic groups. That is totally false.

Think about it. We do care about diversity in our public schools. We feel welcome to have 15% Asians in our town and the same number in our public schools. What we don't want to see is to have two charter schools to drain certain race out of district schools to be less diverse and to have that race concentrated on the two schools.

Please note that not all Asians support these Charter schools. In fact I spoke to many Asians and the majority of whom I spoke to disapproved the creation of these schools. The current supporters are in special interest group, a very thin minority.

We are all for it together, Asian or not, to oppose charter schools in our excellent district for the public funding reason and for the issue of re-segregation in public schools.

Take a look at this link: Only 73 charters in NJ but look at the failure rate:

http://www.state.nj.us/education/chartsch/fact.htm

It looks like at least half of the charter schools are performing worse than their district counterparts.

Well said Chuck! Thank you!

In a quote by Brad Badgley, Patch misstated his years of teaching experience. He has been teaching for 14 years, not 4. We have corrected his quote: “Personally, in my 14 years of teaching World History and Geopolitics, I don’t see the brakes going on for globalization. So that was my reason to start a process, a long-term process, where our children get that opportunity to compete at that global level with what I’ve seen in my experience over here and abroad,” Badgley said. Updated, May 25, 2011, 8:24 a.m.

One of the members of the LBOE incorrectly stated to one of the public speakers that Millburn district hosted an "informational" session a few weeks ago (on May 9th), but it was a one-sided presentation. They did not invite ANYONE from either of the charter schools, and no one that spoke "for" charter schools. It was simply a directed misinformation piece to which the general population of the town seems to be blindly following instead of doing proper fact finding.

I was at the meeting in Millburn and it was a panel discussion, not a one sided meeting. There was a woman who was presenting her research from charter schools and wasn't biased one way or the other. Plus two women from the Princeton school District who were sharing their experiences.

Also, it was an open meeting. Maybe there was nothing positive said about charter schools, but, maybe that is because there is no need for the charter schools in these districts.

Craig, thanks so much for identifying yourself as a spouse of a founder. That makes a different.

You are so confident that your charter school will have student body of roughly 16% Asians. Would your wife be willing to amend school mission to state that it commits to having student body of Asian descents to be at most 16%, if not so, the school will fail in its mission to maintain normal demographics of the towns it serves and hence it should be immediately shut down? By the way 16% is already much higher than the norm of Asian population in the towns that the school will serve (Asian in SO 4%, Mapplewood 3%, Union 8%, Liv 15% and Millburn 8%)

The "open to all" statement is way too convenient. When you "assume" that the student body will have 16% Asians, it is also just your assumption. If you use the actual stats and be really honest about it, you will find the opporsite. The weekend Chinese schools which are "open to all" still have the overwhelming majority in Asian. I assume you send your kids to one of those private schools that teach Mandarin as you seem to be very keen on it personally. Can you tell the demographics of the student body of that school?

What's the name and location of that school? I would love to pay a visit myself to experience it. At least the two schools in Livingston that I visited, they are predominantly Asian.

Also, Craig, you made it sound like your family have no financial interest in the association with this Charter. Based on your comments, you can't really say that. You mentioned that all efforts of the founders will be nothing if their children won't get admitted by lottery. This implies that the founders are likely to send applications for their children to enter the school if it is approved to open. You also mentioned that your children are in private Mandarin-immersion school currently. Think about how much money that your family will save at the expenses of tax payers if you are lucky enough to have your children in (or if it is not oversubscribed, then your children will be automatically in). So, your family definitely has potential financial benefit to get this school open. 

Beside that financial benefit that you might potentially receive, we need to really talk about the fundamental of public education. The potential benefit for a limited number of children cannot be largely demonstrated. The risks are enormous, higher tax and re-segregation in public schools. You tried to show that it is important to learn the language spoken by the global economic powehouse, but later you backed down to only the benefit of a tonal language after an argument about Japanese. In fact, one of the speakers at the meeting attested that his daughter who graduated Livingston High School with Chinese AP now works in China without any language barrier. So, the Mandarin-immersion turns out to be a "want" of a limited number of people with special interest. Why don't we open another Charter school that focuses on environmental protection. It is a great leadership skill to have in global leaders of the future. I would love that too, buy I won't support it because if I want my child to go to a specialized school, I have my  conscience to pay for it without selfishly taking money from other tax payers for my special interest. 

Craig, are you talking about main Chinese classes offering from two Chinese Schools. if yes, they would close down a long time ago. don't misleading people who don't know these schools. you are referring the CSL(Chinese as second Language). because my daughter almost goes that class.

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When reviewing the charter schools' applications online I noticed that several of the required signatures are from non residents of the three school districts the charter school would serve. Can anyone explain why these signatures should be accepted? Why do people in Freehold, Montville, Mountain Lakes and Summit (just to name a few) have a say in how the Livingston BOE has to spend my tax dollars?

Hua Mei has signatures from Parsippany, Hoboken and Essex Fells. Just to name a few of the twons that the charter will not serve.

Before I go any further on this, I want to be sure people understand first that my analysis that involves races is in no way racist or is an attack to a particular race in any way. When talking about the issue of re-segregation, it is important to do data analysis on races.
Craig, I appreciate your valuable input about your private Mandarin-immersion school which has 40% Chinese based on your observation. There is another observation that the weekend schools have 90% Chinese. The discrepancy might have two factors that could affect the %, cost of tuition and location. Note that the weekend schools are located in Livingston with tuition in the order of a few hundred dollars per year. Not sure about the location and the tuition of your Mandarin-immersion school. Those factors could play a role in shifting the demographics.
So, if your observation is correct, on the low end, there will be 40% Chinese in the student body. On the high end, there will be 90% Chinese. With the low end number, that is an abnormality of 10 time higher % of the students with Chinese background than the actual population of South Orange and Maplewood. It’s more than 20 time higher for the high end of the estimate. This is already enough evidence that that, as the principals and the practices of language-centric schools, there is an embedded racial preference. It is the kind of practices that should not be allowed in any public schools (district or charter).

Craig, can you tell me just one family in Millburn intending to send kids to Hua Mei? So far I can't find even on family supporting charter school in my friends circle. Please help me find one.

I am a millburn resident, I would be very interested to send my kids to Hua Mei or Hanyu. Bilingual education is perfect for young kids.

I believe we are getting beyond the root of the issue which is this; while everyone wants their child to have every opportunity available this is simply not the way to go about it. Forcing townspeople to use their hard earned tax dollars to pay for something that they don't need or want is downright unconstitutional.

The wants of the few should Never outweigh the Needs of the many. The Need in this case being excellent education for all. We all live in these towns and in fact moved to these towns for the quality of education that it provided to our children. We pay high taxes for this as well as high housing prices.
Even though our budgets were slashed a year ago our schools still continue to provide our children with a top rated education.

There are a number of private schools in our towns that offer language, culture, arts and sports classses on the weekends or after school. If this is something that you feel you need for your child, you can send them to one of these classes. There is no Need for a charter school as these services are readily avaiable and cost efficient.

First of all, we need to move past Asian vs. Non-Asian on this matter. As a Jewish father of two, living in Livingston, I would be equally opposed to a Hebrew Charter School. I am against these schools not because of the subject matter, but because I believe the Livingston Public Schools are some of the best in the state.

The next thing we have to seperate is "needs vs. wants". I believe everybody would agree we want our children to be exposed to as much as possible. However, in these difficult fiscal times, we need to make choices. Last year, our schools had to make difficult cuts due to budget woes. We lost guidence counselors, we now have pay for play sports, and yes we long foreign language in the elementary schools. By writing a check for $600,000 for these schools, we will loose more opportunities for our children in the public schools. Who know what the next round of cuts will bring?

I believe some of the board members said it best when they stated they are not against charter schools as a philosophy, but they are against charter schools at this time. It is just not something that is needed.

Another aspect is how this will affect the senior community. Many are living on a fixed income. If these schools are approved, taxes very likely will increase. No community can survive without the elder community. However, many will be forced to move since their income will not increase, but their taxes will.

My last point is what this is doing to our community. Livingston is a community which thrives on its diversity. We bring people together, not take tham apart. However, the town has clearly spoken against these schools. However, we realize we have very little say at the end. This is effectively taxation without representation, as we have no say in where our tax dollars are going.

I would ask the charter school founders to consider these points and what it is doing to best for the community moving forward. Together we can accomplish anything, seperate we accomplish nothing.

CONTINUED:

I think we can all keep writing in to debate this issue, but I don't think there is much left to say. The last thing I wish to say is that I hope everyone takes this great energy & passion and writes to Cerf and Christie. I also ask everyone to respect each other's views. I think at this point everyone is just venting frustration, myself included. No one on either site of this debate is going to suddenly change their view, no matter how much is written, no matter how many meeting we have. Let's do our letter writing, let our voices be heard and then lets more on to solve world hunger.

Think a case: Wife doesn't work, 3 kids, live in rental apartment. Wife wants to do home schooling. She thinks why not set up my own charter school? She copies Hua Mei's application package and twists a little, sends to NJDOE charter school office. Approved! Takes 40k from school district as home schooling fund (charter for self), summer vacation paid. This family uses it for whatever they want. Legally done. Ha, ha. What a charter school loophole.

Maddy winograd: you should tell NJDOE Mr. Cref as soon as possible. As Hanyu application supporting signatures largely by people know nothing about charter school, your commitment might help applicants.