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: NJ Politicians Now For School Vouchers?

: By Charles Suldt

: When Cory Booker, Rhodes Scholar, Yale University Law School graduate and candidate for mayor of Newark, suggested that low-income parents should have the right to choose their children's school, the political establishment acted as if shaken by a seismic shock.  Organization politicians raised a hue and cry against school choice.  They contended that giving poor children access to educational opportunity somehow violated basic American principles.  We were told that allowing parents to use government funding for tuition at religious schools would tear asunder the separation of Church and State.  These supporters of the public school monopoly hailed what they claimed as the equality of the current system.  They maintained that using public money for private schools would heighten and worsen social and class distinctions and would be just about the same thing as establishing a caste system.  For these self-charged champions of the American Way, the practical reality of wide slices of the population condemned to poverty by failed schools was sad indeed, but, at the same time, a necessary and unavoidable sacrifice for the greater good.

: This high anxiety concerning educational vouchers resulting in the destruction of America civilization seems to have disappeared like the morning dew.  The good news is that two prominent New Jersey's political figures have come out for your tax dollars supporting religious schools.  The bad news is that the poor need not apply.

: Through the efforts of a pair of the top New Jersey Democrats, Senate Co-President Richard J. Codey (Essex) and  Senate Minority Leader Bernard F. Kenny (Hudson), New Jersey taxpayers now will fund two of the state's elite Catholic high schools – Seton Hall Prep of West Orange and Saint Peter's Prep of Jersey City.  Thanks to Senator Codey, Seton Hall Prep is to get $250,000 for renovations.  Senator Kenny made possible an additional $250,000 for a new sports training field at Saint Peter's Prep.

: Parents pay $9,430 annually to send a son to Seton Hall Prep (neither school admits female students).  The school boasts of a $13,000,000 endowment fund with a goal of $25,000,000.  Among the former students are a Ford Motor Company vice-president and a New Jersey State Supreme Court justice.  A visitor viewing the vast expanse of the wooded grounds and mansions of the Seton Hall Prep campus could be forgiven for imagining having been transported from New Jersey and even from the twenty-first century; one seems to have stepped into a vision of a deep South plantation manor house of a time before the Civil War.  The hard working parents of Newark and Irvington, even though they never can hope to send their children to Seton Hall Prep, now will send their tax dollars there.

: Saint Peter's Prep charges $6,250 each year per student.  The campus is set in Paulus Hook, an exclusive section of the Downtown Jersey City Waterfront.  In 1995, a large portion of the school's complex of buildings benefited from a "multi-million dollar facelift."  The current fund-raising drive has so far succeeded to the tune of $6,500,000 with a goal of $10,000,000.  Among the collection of ambitious projects the school seeks to underwrite is “the construction of a new facility in Sea Bright, NJ.”  How many of the hard working taxpayers of Jersey City can even hope to own property at the Shore?

: Saint Peter's Prep's president Father Keenan explains that as at the present time the proposed athletic field is a vacant lot, the landscaping will yield "green space" that all of Jersey City may enjoy.  Presumably, we are supposed to believe that with the many empty lots in Jersey City, it was chance, not favoritism, that resulted in the choice of this particular location for beautification on the taxpayer’s tab.  The two-acre site is one block from the school and very close to the Liberty State Park -- where the public is allowed entry.  It’s clear that this particular location is valuable to Saint Peter’s.  What’s rather blurry, since Liberty State Park is just a stroll away, is the urgent need that the general population of Jersey City feels for “green space” within shouting distance of a Catholic high school.  And actually, as the athletic field is to consist of artificial turf, defining it as “green space” is at the very least a stretch of the imagination -- if not a contradiction in terms.

: In a spirit of benevolence, Saint Peter’s allows that the possibility exists of others being granted permission to use this little field of dreams at those times when Saint Peter's Prep students have no need of it.

: In the 1960's, through the generosity – direct and indirect – of Hudson County political boss (and Saint Peter's Prep alumnus), John V. Kenny, the school added an impressive modern building on Warren Street.  After a fashion, this Catholic high school has enjoyed a long tradition of taxpayer support.  A life-long resident who worked for the City of Jersey City during the reign of J.V.K. reported that a crew of City employees was assigned to "the Little Guy's project," as the Saint Peter's Prep construction site then was known.  (John V. Kenny's nick-name was "The Little Guy.)  This was during an era of deferred maintenance for Jersey City's public schools and municipal buildings that produced a downward spiral of decay.

: Convicted and jailed Jersey City Mayor Thomas Whelan sent his son to Saint Peter’s Prep.  Jersey City police were forced to act as chauffeurs, driving young Whelan back and forth each day.  Nathan Lane, star of stage and screen, is a Saint Peter’s Prep graduate.  In the same ‘70s class as the nascent Broadway comedian was the son of a high ranking Union City official -- until the entire family faded away by entering the Federal witness protection program. (For a little while, he was the only guy in the whole school permitted to attempt a beard.  Apparently, the whiskers were intended as a disguise.  You see, real life gamblers aren’t necessarily a bunch of lovable Damon Runyon characters, like in Guys and Dolls.)  

: These quarter-million dollar Trenton plums come at time of slashed support for public schools that results in shrinking programs and teacher lay-offs.  

: Plus, the actual legality of direct government subsidies to religious schools is questionable.  The Supreme Court decided in favor of vouchers to parents who then might choose to use the funds for parochial tuition.  But what the Supreme Court allows is government money going first to the family, not straight to an institution with a religious affiliation. 

: Two Saint Peter's Prep students are Senator Bernard Kenny's sons, as luck would have it.

: State Senator Kenny was the bearer of the sad tidings concerning the State aid cuts to Jersey City.  Bernard Kenny provided the crocodile tears while telling Mayor Glenn Cunningham that the money just was not there.  It appears that, when motivated, Senator Kenny is capable of miracles.


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