An Editorial: MHS Student Speaks Out About The Charter School Issue

Last year, cuts in New Jersey's education budget forced Montclair to trim its spending on schools by about $5 million.

Because of those cuts, the district eliminated 80 jobs, many of them for teachers, and cut back on programs and services.

Now, as the proposal for a charter school in town approaches its last chance for survival, the district must pray the state continues to refuse to open yet another school in Montclair.  

The finances of the Quest Academy charter school are scary. If the state grants Quest a charter to operate, more than $2.1 million will be diverted from Montclair's education budget to the new school.

By next September, that will mean more than $7 million will have been lost from the budget in the last two years. The school district must pay for more than 90 percent of each Quest student's cost — or $12,706 per student — and will save little to no money by losing a couple of hundred students from the high school.

The district won't be able to cancel any classes or pay any teachers less just because a sliver of MHS' population is gone. A $2 million cut, if the trend from last year is consistent, will result in 32 more layoffs and more logistic difficulties. Thirty-two more layoffs?!? After last spring's debacle, how could Quest even be a possibility?

The district's superintendent Frank Alvarez is staunchly anti-Quest. "I looked at this many different ways, and I don't think charter schools do anything but increase the expenses to local taxpayers," he said. One charter school founder counters, "There would be absolutely no tax increase. That's a scare tactic." But how, if Montclair wants to avoid an additional approximate $2 million education cut, could there be no tax increase?

The Quest founders promise a "comprehensive list of co-curricular and extra-curricular programs," something Montclair High prides itself on and, even in the face of budget cuts, has preserved.

Another sticking point for pro-Quest crusaders is Montclair High, by the standards of No Child Left Behind, has failed for the third consecutive year to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress, which is indicated by test results. Instead of providing money and resources to improve MHS' AYP, though, Quest supporters want to split off from Montclair High, taking much-needed money with them.

The founders have also maintained they do not intend for the Quest school to compete with Montclair High School; rather, they argue, the school simply provides an alternative. Founder Tracey Williams, then, seemed hypocritical when she said this about the relationship between MHS and Quest, "I believe in competition and I think it makes everyone better."

The founders are proud of their whopping total of 125 letters of support from the pool of parents of 6,000 Montclair students. Williams would be wise to remember her promise, "If parents want the school to happen, it will happen. If not, then it won't. It's that simple," and pull the plug on this charter school nonsense.