Opposition Muted as Christie’s School-Voucher Pilot Makes Public Debut

There were plenty of questions but little outright opposition as Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed school-vouchers program got its first public airing Thursday.

The controversial issue was a prime topic as the Assembly budget committee held a hearing on Christie’s education budget for fiscal 2014. Education Commissioner Chris Cerf testified for close to five hours on a range of topics.

Christie’s proposed $97 million increase in state aid also got plenty of attention, especially after recent revelations that any increases for districts will be blunted by fees charged by the state for school-construction grants.

In the end, 267 districts – close to half of all those statewide -- will see net losses in the money they will receive from the state next year, after the assessments are factored in, Cerf confirmed yesterday.

But much of the attention yesterday was focused on how the committee’s Democrats would react to Christie’s plans for the Opportunity Scholarship Demonstration Grants, which in its first year would give “scholarships” up to $10,000 to 200 low-income students to attend outside schools, including private ones.

While small, it would be the first school-voucher program in the state, after more than 20 years of debate dating back through the terms of five governors.

Led by the committee’s chairman, state Assemblyman Vincent Pietro (D-Hudson), Democrats had plenty of questions about the plan yesterday, and there were a few new developments.

For instance, Cerf said that the department had started to develop the plan for the program to be ready to accept students for the fall, if approved by the Legislature, including reviewing both the schools that students could leave and those they could attend.

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