NJ Education Brian Drain by Rye

In a piece on HuffPo, Rye City is called out as one of the communities that has caused part of the educational brain drain in New Jersey:

"Instead of advertising and bragging about our public school students being among the best performing in the nation ("New Jersey: home to some of America's highest performing students"), the Christie administration claims that radical surgery is needed to protect our kids from incompetent, time-serving teachers. In city districts, the administration wants more "competition" — including religious schools supported by tax dollars, a plethora of new charter schools and public schools being operated by outside for-profit management companies.

Yet when the issue is leadership of school districts, "competition" is deemed irrelevant. When companies want to leave New York City, New Jersey goes to war against Westchester or Nassau counties in New York and Fairfield County in Connecticut. But when it comes to recruiting the smartest, most effective educational leaders to take already good districts to another level, New Jersey has thrown in the towel. "Let 'em go to Rye, N.Y., we don't care," is the attitude of the Christie administration. Sure enough, the superintendent of the education commissioner's hometown, Montclair, left for Rye and a $244,000 salary."

The article is talking about our Rye Superintendent Frank Alvarez, who took the gig in Rye last March.

Read the piece on HuffPo.

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