From New Jersey.com’s Leslie Brody:
A proposal for a virtual charter school based in Teaneck that would end its first year with $4.7 million of taxpayer money left in the bank has sparked concern and calls Friday for deeper scrutiny.
State Sen. Richard Codey, D-Essex, said the proposal sounded like a “business, plain and simple.”
“With all the people out of work, there are going to be more applications for this … to get rich real quick,” he said.
A proposal for the Garden State Virtual Charter School, filed with the state on Monday, seeks to serve 1,000 K-12 students statewide at first. It would have a drop-in center in Teaneck for those who want extra help in person, but would not have many of the expenses of running a bricks-and-mortar school, such as buses, nursing and sports. Its 36 teachers would do most of their instruction by web conferencing.
The school’s budget anticipates state and local funding of $15.4 million and expenses of $10.7 million in its first year. In New Jersey, a charter is supposed to get taxpayer dollars for each student equal to 90 percent of per-pupil funding in the district where the student resides.
Small wonder all those education entrepreneurs are flocking to Jeb Bush’s education, um, summit in San Francisco. It is Bush who encouraged Rick Scott to sell Florida Virtual School. Anyone with that kind of clout who hosts a ed summit with a presentation titled “Don’t Let a Financial Crisis Go To Waste” is a real rainmaker to someone looking to cash in on policy.
