Terrific news. One down; two to go!

Unfortunately, our local assemblypeople Bramnick and Munoz voted no on A3852. Way to not represent your constituents.

Did either Bramnick or Munoz explain their reasoning for voting no?

Very disappointed in our local assembly people.

Because they are Republican and they are being loyal to the gov.

It does appear that most (but not all) Republicans voted no or abstained, while almost every Democrat voted yes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Qv_dFBnPsb1LKCGNJKVm7b6Y35tUIYvS38vCvxScs8/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

Please let your legislators know how you feel about their votes!

What is the cost of funding voter referenda, recounts, legal challenges, et al., for every proposed charter school?

I am a cofounder of a proposed charter school. I am a Ph.D. educated scientist, but I would not deign to presume that I am qualified to judge the excellence of the quality of a charter school nor do I have the aggregate experience to determine whether a school will be successful. That is why we need qualified authorizers, i.e., reputable institutions of higher learning, who are removed from the political process to make those decisions. Charter school approval should not be left to the whims of politicians or suffer from majority rule without regard for minority rights. If there is demand for the school in the community, and the curriculum offers an opportunity for excellence in education, the school should be approved. If it is approved, and there is no demand, the school will not open. The Hua Mei Charter School offers an outstanding curriculum to ready our children for the 21st century -- it focuses on math and science with the added benefit of Mandarin fluency. One must question the wisdom and motivation of those who would ask taxpayers to fund a voter referendum on every proposed charter school. In the end, how will that cost compare with the money required to approve a charter? If there is truly no demand for the school, no one will apply. It costs $0 of taxpayer money to conduct that experiment.

5) There doesn't have to be ovewhelming community demand for a charter school to hurt the host community. If only a dozen children choose to attend a charter school in neighboring school district, Millburn-Short Hills will lose enough revenue to pay for two teachers. There will be no accompanying cost reduction as those 12 children aren't all going to come from one classroom. It's like asking your neighbors to pay for your street to be paved purple, even if it means that there isn't enough money left to pave any other streets in town.

"One must question the wisdom and motivation of those who would ask taxpayers to fund a voter referendum on every proposed charter school. "

I question not only the wisdom but also the motives of anyone who would ask taxpayers in a high performing public school district to fund a specialized private school of limited appeal to most residents.

Wouldn't the vote take place during the regular, annual April school elections? The election is taking place anyway. Just add a separate question for each charter school that is proposed:

Question 1: A public question to enable the establishment of Hua Mei charter school, at a cost of $13,000 per pupil for each such pupil residing in Millburn Township who enrolls in the school, to be paid through the annual taxes levied by the Millburn Board of Education.

Anyone else notice that the only ones who have voiced support for the proposed the charters, either @ town meetings or online, are its founders or founders of similar charter schools. Speaks volumes for to the community's need for and interest in these schools.

And how is it that these founders of proposed charter schools lack a basic understanding of vocabulary, etc? I would die if Dr. Crisfield used the phrase "deign to presume" because it sounds so stupid and wrong (but he wouldn't say such a thing). Charter school opportunists are trying to invade our schools for their own advancement. And people with such poor writing skills couldn't get into the educational system (and lead schools) via traditional means.

Tiffany --

1) The votes would be during the annual school elections, so it would involve no additional costs of any substance.

2) Voters currently vote on bond issues and other complex matters. We are a democracy and trust the voters vs. the alternative of an all-powerful ruler.

3). There is tremendous cost in the current system of requiring communities to fight off individual charter school applications as they arise.

4). Local approval is not a radical departure from the norm. In fact, one third of all the states with charter schools have a local approval requirement. It is New Jersey's current law that is the outlier. We are the only state that has no caps on the number of new charter schools, leaves local communities entire out of the approval process, yet expects those communities to pay for new charter schools with funds that come out of their local public school budgets. That's why 73 percent of New Jersey residents support the local approval requirement! This includes republicans, democrats and independents.

Question: Why is it that below the headline it is indicated that there are 26 comments to this story, but when I click into the article, there are only 13? Some comments are appearing in the right column on the home page, but I don't see them when I open up the article.

Censorship (actually, it is probably just a technical glitch).

The reply feature in terms of specific comments doesn't seem to work and those comments don't show up. If you comment, make sure to do it as a new comment vs. as a reply to an existing one.

Rest assured it's not censorship. We are having some technical difficulties and I have alerted the tech folks. Thought it was fixed at one point, but see that it's still an issue. So we'll keep working at it.