Back to Basics
It’s time to face reality folks. Public school budgets and in turn property taxes cannot continue to run counter to the new Gov. Christie economy. It’s time to cut back in real dollars, not just slowing the rate of increase, and there is a way to do it.
It’s time to cut out exceptional expenditures for advanced courses, programs, and teachers that essentially are provided where they should be, in private schools. The public school system has evolved into a zero-cost private school alternative.
Let’s revert back to providing a high-quality but basic education for our students. If you want the equivalent of a private school advanced education then you write the annual $25K tuition check to a private school, but not on my dime.
Dennis Buchert
Plainsboro
PIACS: Sweet Deal
I was at Princeton’s Communiversity Day last weekend and I noticed that the largest tent along Nassau was the one for PIACS, the new charter school taxpayers in West Windsor, Plainsboro, Princeton and South Brunswick will begin subsidizing in September. The folks in the tent seemed nice enough but I wanted to look into the school on my own. So I went to their website.
I found out that the State Board of Education approved their Charter School application on an expedited “fast track” review. Why? Can’t seem to find any reason. PIACS submitted its application in October, 2009, and received approval on January 15. During that time there was a general election and the turnover from one administration to another, yet somehow, despite those distractions, someone remained focused enough to see that this got done.
Perhaps their application was just too compelling to ignore. In their own words “While neither Chinese language immersion nor the IB program alone is unique, PIACS’ integration of them is innovative. The IB curriculum framework consists of trans-disciplinary programs of international education designed to develop the whole child.”
Further, the 12 founders of the school feel strongly that there is an need for Chinese immersion education in their area. I find this last concept confusing because the YingHua Day School in Lawrenceville (now the YingHua International School YHIS) was founded in 2002 providing Chinese language immersion within IB curriculum framework. To me, it sounded a lot like the mission statement of PIACS. And it should sound a lot alike.
I noticed that of the 12 founders of the PIACS, at least 8 are currently on the Board of Trustees of YHIS or currently have kids enrolled at YHIS. Bonnie Liao founded and is the director of both schools. Now I don’t know Ms. Liao, but I am sure she has the best intentions. However, I can”t seem to square why I have to subsidize her efforts at promoting her educational agenda.
It seems to me that the PIACS school simply offers an alternative to the very fine public schools we enjoy in South Brunswick, WW-P, and Princeton. But PIACS has a lot of competition from other institutions that also offer alternatives to the public education. Area private schools include Peddie, Hun, Princeton Day, Stuart and many others, including the French-American School of Princeton, which provides dual-language education (K-6th grade).
But note that none of those schools requires that I subsidize them, not even the other dual-language school. YHIS charges $12,000 for its “dual language programs within the prestigious International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum framework while seeking the official authorization.”
I suppose if you could somehow finagle a Charter School designation, you might become more attractive as your tuition drops from $12,000 to 0. That is because the state requires that when students attend a charter school, their home school district must remit 90 percent of their per-pupil expenditure to the charter school. So WW-P residents will pay PIACS $11,740 for each of their residents’ kids that attend. Since the Princeton Regional District spends more than WW-P, those kids from Princeton will actually bring PIACS a little extra.
It now makes more sense to me why the three founders of PIACS who currently send their kids to YHIS would be so gung-ho about the Charter School. Mr. Block, Mr. Bliey and Mr. Chen-Hayes clearly believe in this alternative educational product and now receive that product at no cost to them. Hey, if someone told me I could send my kids to the private school of my own choosing and then make other people pay for it, I might think it was an indefensibly selfish thing to do, but I might be tempted. But somehow I don’t think that offer is forthcoming.
Sean P Sheerin
Van Wyck Drive,
Princeton Junction
