Two Chinese Charter Schools Proposed for Livingston

Livingston Republican councilwoman Deborah Shapiro is a founding member of one of the two Chinese charter schools that have filed applications for approval with the state Department of Education to serve Livingston students.

If approved, the Hanyu International Academy Charter in Livingston would offer Mandarin immersion to students in Livingston as well as students in Millburn and Short Hills, she said.

“I believe that we can set the educational bar even higher in Livingston -- which has a wonderful public school system -- by providing this charter school alternative,” Shapiro said.

It wouldn’t be Livingston’s only choice for Mandarin immersion. The Hua Mei Charter School is also listed among the nearly 60 new applications for charters filed last month in New Jersey.

Hua Mei (pronounced hwah may and meaning Chinese American) Charter School, would serve students from the Livingston, South Orange/Maplewood, West Orange, Union and Millburn school districts. The school plans to locate in Maplewood, its founders said.

Mandarin-language immersion schools are a fast-growing segment of the charter school movement. Livingston is a natural location, Shapiro said, with a growing Asian community that represents 14 percent of the town’s residents, according to the 2010 Census.

A strong network of independent schools and associations supports the Asian community, including the Livingston Chinese School, the Livingston Huaxia Chinese School, the Livingston Chinese Association, and the Living Stone Christian Church. (Separately, in her role as councilwoman, Shapiro has proposed creating the Asian Community Outreach Committee to foster relationships within Livingston, according to her blog).

Supporters believe that Chinese is the language of the future and a language that kids should learn early on. Culture is also an important component as parents seek to pass down the heritage to their children.

Nancy Chu, a founder of the , is a fluent Mandarin speaker, but said she believes her son, who is half Chinese, will not become fluent without immersion. Language acquisition, she said, requires "practice on a daily basis and discourse.”

Shapiro added that immersion in multiple languages at a young age greatly increases a person's mental skills as well as improves their future job skills. “Jean Piaget, a developmental psychologist, had a theory that stated that when a child faces an idea that does not fit their understanding, it ‘becomes a catalyst for new thinking,’ ” Shapiro said. “As a new language is completely foreign to a child at first, it fits perfectly as this ‘catalyst for new thinking.’ "

If approved by the state Department of Education, the charter schools would be supported by the local school districts, up to 90 percent of the costs of educating each individual child. They would operate independently of the local Board of Education and be managed by trustees.

The public choice debate has escalated throughout New Jersey. Charters are supposed to provide alternatives to failing schools, but increasingly they are being proposed in high-ranking districts like Livingston.

As the applications grow, so do concerns that the charters could drain money from these suburban districts already crunched by dwindling state aid and rising costs. In Princeton, for example, the bill for its existing charter, the 10-year-old Princeton Charter School, is about $4.9 million, according to Rebecca Cox, president of the Princeton Regional Schools Board of Education.

Livingston Public Schools administrators are reviewing the recent applications from the two Chinese charters. “We look forward to meeting with other districts from New Jersey who have gone through this process already and are studying the financial impact on the district,” said Superintendent Dr. Brad Draeger.

That meeting will take place on May 9, according to Millburn Superintendent James Crisfield. He is inviting officials from districts that already have charter schools to hear about the lessons they learned.

Cox said Princeton Regional Schools have been hard hit by charters. “The PRS board's position is that we simply can't afford boutique charter schools desired by a handful of parents," she said. “Charters have a role in New Jersey, but it certainly isn't in districts that are successfully educating their children.”

School district representatives have petitioned the NJ Assembly to create a mechanism within charter school laws requiring a public vote to approve such schools. And while applications are rising at record levels, the promised by Gov. Chris Christie to open up charters further and change the rules of oversight has yet even to be filed.

The issue emerged as a key divisive point among the candidates running for the Livingston Board of Education. The Barry Funt and Ray Leibman, talked about many issues facing Livingston schools, including spending, teacher contracts and special education, during a forum on Tuesday morning. But the charter school issue is clearly the issue that separates the candidates. (They will meet again Thursday night at a debate presented by the .

In remarks made to members of the Livingston Old Guard on Tuesday morning, the candidates  offered their differing opinions:

“Once we start diluting our school system … we are going to start seeing our taxes go up,” Leibman said. "In urban areas, I think charter schools are absolutely necessary. I don’t think they’re getting a fair shake. Here, we got benchmarks that are some of the best in the country. I don’t think we need charter schools in Livingston,” Leibman said.

“I believe in competition,” countered Funt. “We need to have a school system that should be so good that everybody wants to come … If charter schools open in town and parents think that’s a better option, than our school district just needs to work harder. Competition is what made this country great. Competition in education will make education great,” Funt said.

The issue also surfaced at the Board of Education meeting on Monday night. Crisfield, the superintendent, said his complaint is not with the charter schools but with the state laws that govern how they are funded.

"We will be required to hand over 90 percent of our per pupil cost, to the charter school, right off the top of our budget, and there will be no corresponding reduction in our costs.  This is a major flaw," he said. "Losing, say, two second graders in one school, and perhaps three first graders from another, and so on, does not enable us to cut our costs in any meaningful way.  Yet we lose significant amounts of revenue (well over $10K per student)."

Millburn school board member Scott Kamber said it was too early to be so concerned about charter schools because there’s a difference between “serving” a district and actually getting any students from that district to leave their schools.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Kamber said. “It’s a tremendous leap to go from an application to students leaving the top district in the state to attend ... I don’t know how many people would pay to live in this community and send their kids to a charter school.”

Meanwhile, grassroots organizations like Save Our Schools New Jersey have emerged to urge legislators to give districts the final say on charters, according to Andrea Spalla, a member of the Princeton Regional Schools Board of Education.

“The position of Save Our Schools New Jersey (of which I am a proud member) is the same whether the school district is high-performing or not: Voters in that district, whose taxes will be paying for any proposed charter school and whose community will be affected by the proposed charter school, should have the final say,” Spalla said. 

“SOSnj has been working closely with state lawmakers to change the current charter school law in many ways, but most importantly to require voter approval before any new charter school opens," she said.

Cox, the board president of Princeton Regional Schools, advised Livingston to immediately project the amount of funds that will be consumed by the two charters once they finish expanding.

“It will definitely outstrip the amount they are permitted to raise through local taxes,” she said. “The only solution will be to cut programs and teachers in their schools (which I am sure will continue to educate more than 90 percent of their students) simply to fund two separate districts with additional layers of administrators and related expenses,” Cox said.

Councilwoman Shapiro, a proponent of school choice, said she was honored to be asked to serve on the founding board of the Hanyu International Academy Charter in Livingston.  “We need to be creative and flexible in how we provide educational choices to our children and we also want to get the 'best bang for our buck,' " she said.

“To compete in the global economy, it makes sense to provide our children – all our children -- with the opportunity to get Chinese language immersion,” Shapiro said. “And, as entrance to the school is by lottery, we hope to draw from all the diverse ethnicities -- thereby further integrating all the diversities into a rich 'whole'.

"Who wouldn't be pleased and excited to be part of this endeavor?”

Patch editors Mary Mann in Maplewood, Laura Griffin in Millburn, and Davy James in South Brunswick contributed reporting for this story.