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2,500 attend Trenton rally supporting school voucher program for N.J. students in failing districts

By Jessica Calefati
Star-Ledger
December 1, 2011

Supporters of a bill to give scholarships to tens of thousands of students in failing public schools to attend private and parochial schools rallied on the Statehouse steps today, urging legislators to take action.

Most of the 2,500 demonstrators were parochial school students participating in what organizers called a “field trip” and a “lesson in civil rights.” The mostly teenaged students wore bright blue scarves emblazoned with an image of a life preserver.

Paterson Archdiocese Superintendent John Eriksen and leader of We Can Do Better, a group lobbying for the bill (S1872/A2810), known as the Opportunity Scholarship Act, organized the event.

“We want the legislators to hear the voices of the children,” Eriksen said. “There is no reason a family in Paterson whose house burned down and is struggling to send their children to private school shouldn’t benefit from this legislation.”

The bill would solicit corporations to offer tax-deductible donations to fund the scholarships.

The Legislature has to act on the bill by mid-January or it must be reintroduced once new legislators are sworn in.

Jack Goan, 14, an eighth-grader at Christ the King School in Haddonfield, said he supports vouchers even though his family can afford his tuition.

“At public school, all the kids have to learn at the same pace, but here, you can go at your own pace,” Goan said.

Students from Immaculate Conception in Montclair and Benedictine Academy in Elizabeth also demonstrated.

Though Gov. Chris Christie has touted the voucher bill as a signature piece of his education reform agenda, the legislation has stalled since February. At the time, Democrats expressed concerns over the size of the bill, which would create a pilot program for 13 towns and up to 40,000 students who would receive scholarships of $8,000 per year for elementary students and $11,000 for high school students.

Assemblyman Angel Fuentes (D-Camden), one of the bill’s sponsors, said the pilot program could be pared down to serve only five districts, including Camden, Newark, Paterson and Asbury Park. Elizabeth and Trenton are also being considered for the fifth district.

Those who oppose vouchers held a competing rally Wednesday in Jersey City organized by the Newark-based Latino Institute and Save Our Schools, a grassroots coalition of parents and community leaders.

“Today’s pro-voucher rally is an example of the corrosive influence of money on our democracy,” said Bill Colon, director of the Latino Institute, and Julia Rubin, leader of grassroots organization Save Our Schools in a joint statement. “Twenty years of voucher experiments have proven that vouchers do not help a single child.”