NJ Education chief on hot seat over bogus degrees

This from APP.com:

TRENTON — State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy endured a grilling Monday from the chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, who questioned how school administrators were permitted to adorn their credentials with academic degrees from fly-by-night institutions.

During Monday's hearing, Davy said that she believed the schools chiefs collected the questionable degrees because their contracts assured them higher degrees meant higher salaries.

"To use it to gain an increase in pay," Davy said when asked why the school bosses needed to overstate their academics...

New Jersey Superintendents sue Education Commissioner

This from the Star-Ledger:

Administrators association challenges

new state rules on

contracts and compensation

Adding fuel to the debate over school costs, the group representing New Jersey's superintendents filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against the state education commissioner, claiming new limits on administrators' pay are arbitrary and unconstitutional.

The suit comes one day after the state released information about compensation for more than 3,000 administrators, including millions of dollars in stipends, benefits and other pay beyond their published salaries.

But the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Trenton, challenges new regulations enacted by Education Commissioner Lucille Davy last month that give the state the power to review and even reject the contracts of superintendents, assistant superintendents and business administrators.

The suit contends the new rules violate the administrators' rights to due process and single them out over other public employees....