A brief letter in the January 21 issue of The News opened the gates to a flood of comments at www.wwpinfo.com. The letter, from Plainsboro residents Kalpana and Ravi Joshi, asked why charter schools are not required to provide compensation information for its top administrators, as public schools are required to do.
As of press time for this issue, the letter had generated 62 comments — many of them emanating from taxpayers unhappy with the extra expenses associated with the proposed Chinese language immersion school, the Princeton International Academy Charter School (PIACS).
“In spite of their professed preference for charter schools, we hope Governor Christie and the new commissioner of education, Christopher Cerf, hold the charter schools at least to the same transparency standards as the local public schools,” said one.
A proponent of the charter school noted that “there is a global fight for U.S. jobs. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand pretending our public education is just fine. It’s time to bring innovation into the systems to raise the bar of quality public education for everyone. PIACS would be a small price to pay for finding out how to educate students to be stronger in math and science and to become a global thinker without having to be stressed out.”
One online respondent argued that public schools should have some of the same flexibility as charter schools: “Empowering public schools is the answer. Regulations must be relaxed as they are for the charter schools. Students who can’t or who refuse to behave must have alternative placements that can be acted upon without a lot of red tape. Three strikes and you are sent to another school that is intended for such students. If parents cannot work with their child within the three-strike time to improve their child’s behavior, then the child is gone without an appeals process.”
Several comments managed to bundle PIACS and Intercap’s plans to redevelop its property near the Princeton Junction train station. “PIACS wants small class sizes, new computers, Chinese language classes. Now Americans are stuck with the tax bill. Many large families rent in Plainsboro or West Windsor and think that we tax payers have million-dollar homes so we should pay for their kids’ education.
“These self-serving people will continue to take advantage of our public school system. Additionally, we will now have more renters with the 800 units in the new Intercap housing development at the train station.”
As for the settlement with Intercap, one writer described it as “tragic no matter how you look at it. The transit development nightmare has only begun. Do not think for a moment that it all stops here. This is just the ground work for more development on the way. How much easier will it be to add more. It won’t be overnight but it is coming. This project will lead to more ‘smart growth projects’ and so on. This was what our Mayor wanted and if he had gotten his way, it would have been worse.
“How many more months until the next mayoral election?” (Editor’s note: The next election will be in November of 2013.)
