This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Barbara Buono's Plan for New Jersey Students

Last week, Governor Christie said he has no plans to visit Trenton Central High School. At TCHS, students learn and educators teach in a school where the roof leaks and the ceilings crumble. Classroom walls are moldy. When rain falls, there’s a pretty good chance it will set off the faulty fire alarm system, which means students have to evacuate and stand out in the rain. One could imagine that it’s pretty hard to learn under those conditions.

TCHS is just one glaring example of what’s happening in New Jersey’s schools.

Watch New Jersey teachers describe the learning environments their students must adapt to here

Find out what's happening in Barnegat-Manahawkinwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono is an advocate of New Jersey’s public school system.

“As a graduate of New Jersey’s public schools, from Washington Elementary in Nutley to Rutgers Law School in Camden, I know education is the great equalizer,” Buono said in a video promoting her education plan. Watch the video here.

Find out what's happening in Barnegat-Manahawkinwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

While in the Legislature, Sen. Buono authored the School Funding Reform Act, which created an equitable education funding system so all N.J. students could get the resources they needed.

In contrast, Gov. Chris Christie cut education funding by nearly $1 billion during his first year in office. This led to impediments to learning like crumbling infrastructure in schools and bigger class sizes.

“The copy machines would break and people would be lining up, and then they’d run out of paper. We actually would run out of paper,’” said Martha Landy, a retired schoolteacher, describing the immediate effects of Christie’s funding cuts.

Other schoolteachers also noticed that infrastructure and safety in our schools are casualties of Christie’s austerity.

“Either we repair the fire alarm system or we repair the roof,” said Barbara Rheault.

Buono recently released a plan to restore school funding so students can get a quality education.

Buono believes a strong economy and good schools go hand-in-hand. As such, her plan to restore New Jersey’s financial climate heavily relies on improving education in New Jersey.
We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?