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....

Educators say state threatened to cut aid

Needy districts pressed to accept modest increase

[New Jersey] School superintendents from Orange, Paterson and other needy districts told lawmakers yesterday they were coerced into accepting inadequate aid for the coming year by state officials who threatened intense audits and potential funding cuts for those seeking more.

Of the 31 communities that receive special assistance under the state Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke rulings, only seven have sought more than the 3 percent increase offered by the state Department of Education.

"It's made very clear to us that if you would choose to go for additional funding, the tasks and documentation process would be much more arduous than it would be if you accept the 3 percent," Michael Glascoe, Paterson schools superintendent, told the Legislature's Joint Committee on the Public Schools at a hearing in Trenton yesterday.

"If you apply for more you run the risk of not even getting the 3 percent," added Trenton Superintendent Rodney Lofton. "It's one of those risks you take with no promise."

Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-Essex), co-chairman of the committee on the Public Schools, called the situation "very, very, very troublesome."

"There's a serious issue here," he said. "What we're engaged in, perhaps, is not just deception but might even be considered criminal."

This from The Star-Ledger.