By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

TRENTON, N.J. – Who runs the public education system in New Jersey? The answer obviously remains the same as it was a decade ago – the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

Just ask the organizers of the New Jersey Virtual Academy Charter School, which was supposed to open as the state’s first online charter school a year ago.

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Two years ago the school received tentative approval from the state to open in the fall of 2012.

Following objections from the NJEA, the state postponed the opening until the fall of 2013.

But the union kept whining and applying political pressure, and its strategy eventually paid off.

Several weeks ago Chris Cerf, the state’s education commissioner, suddenly announced that he would not give the green light for the school to open, this year or ever.

The unexpected decision was heartbreaking for school officials who had worked for years to satisfy the state’s concerns, hire staff and enroll several hundred students.

Over the course of two years, they went from having tentative state approval to outright rejection, obviously due, at least partially, to self-serving union opposition.

“I’d say we’re shocked,” Lorna Bryant, the head of schools for the proposed academy, told EAGnews. “I think the reason we’re so surprised is because we’ve had several meetings with the Department of Education over the years and offered to address all of their concerns.

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“We had 850 children whose parents went through a tremendous effort to collect all the documents they needed to enroll,” she said. “They’re heartbroken. They’re devastated.”

Other leaders of the Virtual Academy were downright angry about the decision, and made sure Cerf knows it.

“We now find ourselves in the position of having to tell 850 children, their families and the teachers your staff insisted we hire as part of the compliance process that, once again, the school will be denied the opportunity to open and prove ourselves,” Michael Pallante, chairman of the board for the Virtual Academy, wrote in an open letter to Cerf.

Of course union officials were happy with the decision, which they probably expected.

NJEA spokesman Steve Wollmer called the Virtual Academy “an experiment we don’t need to take in New Jersey,” NJSpotlight.com reports.

Long road to nowhere

New Jersey’s Department of Education approved the initial application for the Virtual Academy two years ago, and since then officials for the proposed school have bent over backwards to gain final approval.

But shortly after the state gave its preliminary nod, the NJEA began to lobby against the proposal under the guise of concerns about the school providing a quality education for students.

Union officials argued the state’s charter school law doesn’t have provisions to properly regulate virtual schools because it was passed in 1995, before the explosion of online education. They raised questions about the quality of instruction, the legal merits, and the overall viability of the online school, according to media reports.

We suspect the NJEA’s biggest motivation for opposing the promising Virtual Academy, however, was the possible success of the school. The Virtual Academy, associated with the wildly successful K12 Inc., planned to hire non-union teachers, and demonstrated the potential to lure many students away from traditional public schools.

Fewer students in traditional public schools would mean less demand for union teachers, and fewer dues dollars in the union’s coffers.

To teachers unions, students equal money.

The NJEA’s concern about the quality of academics is especially ironic, considering the dismal instruction thousands of students receive from unionized teachers in the state’s failing public schools every year.

Shouldn’t the union be equally opposed to government schools that don’t make the grade?

Regardless, the NJEA’s political pressure clearly left an impression on state officials, and Cerf delayed the launch of the Virtual Academy for a year last summer.

“We were told they needed another year” to study the legalities and effectiveness of online schools, Bryant said. “We understood that this would be the first statewide virtual academy in the state … and we were willing to work with them.

“We offered to run the school as a pilot, to open up our school to state officials to track the effectiveness. We certainly weren’t shying away from accountability issues,” she said.

Virtual Academy officials invited legislators and critics to a presentation of online instruction, met teacher certification and curriculum standards, submitted a budget, and demonstrated strong interest from New Jersey families.

“We thought as long as we were able to show compliance, we would be able to open the school,” Bryant said.

Academy officials were preparing for a final Department of Education compliance review when they received the news.

“Two weeks before (the review) we received this notice the school wouldn’t be allowed to open at all, and that was after months and months and months of enrolling students, hiring teachers and working toward compliance,” Bryant said.

The DOE sounds a lot like the union

The DOE’s notice of rejection “seemed to echo the same reasons the NJEA gave for opposing the school,” Bryant said.

In his letter to the school, Cerf wrote:

“In part because New Jersey law did not anticipate operation of an entirely virtual school, ongoing analysis continues amongst all stakeholders regarding the legal and practical implications for opening a virtual charter school in New Jersey that will enroll and deliver instruction to students located across the state.

“Complicating the analysis is the fact that, despite the presence of virtual charter schools in other states, there is inadequate independent research into both their academic effectiveness, as well as the necessary elements needed to ensure effective oversight…

“Uncertainty about the legal foundations for fully virtual charter schools and the Department’s serious concerns regarding its ability to effectively oversee and monitor such schools precludes the Department from granting NJVACS a final charter,” he concluded.

Bryant said “the letter really didn’t address what’s at issue here, and that’s the children … who are not getting what they need in their current situation.”

“The legal issues they raised one would think those were addressed when the application was (initially) approved,” Bryant said. “We were under the impression the commissioner has the authority to approve the school.

“In terms of the effectiveness … how does one assess the effectiveness of the school unless you open up the school?” she questioned. “We made every attempt to allow the state to study and asses our effectiveness.”

In the days since Cerf’s decision, school officials, the K12 board, parents and students have pleaded to speak with the commissioner in an effort to better understand his reasoning for denying the charter, but have thus far received no response.

In Cerf’s letter, he notes school officials can appeal the decision to the state Superior Court’s Appellate Division, but Bryant said the Virtual Academy likely will wait until the formal July 15 deadline for charter school approval to pass before taking any action.

“I’m not entirely sure what the next step will be,” Bryant said.

She expects the Virtual Academy’s board to make that decision in the coming weeks.