Whether or not Jasey is named as Commissioner of Education, she has been one of the most active legislators on education since she joined the Assembly in 2007. She also might become the chair of the Assembly Education Committee.
This post looks at her record on state aid and the budget.
Background:
In her pre-politics life, Jasey was a public health nurse and homemaker in South Orange. Her husband was a counsel for the Prudential before becoming an Essex County judge. Her daughter, Rhena Jasey, went to Harvard and became a teacher in South Orange-Maplewood. Rhena Jasey was a subject of the documentary "American Teacher."
Jasey was a member of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education from 1999-2007, including service as president.
During her service the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education enforced a ban on all Christmas music (including secular Christmas songs like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). The rule was trivial in its educational impact, but the controversy around it consumed large amounts of Board attention, including litigation that nearly went to the US Supreme Court. The district's ban on Christmas music became part of a conservative litany that there existed a "War on Christmas."
Jasey has represented District 27 in the Assembly since November 2007, when she replaced Mims Hackett. Jasey has served as chair of the Committee on Higher Education since 2015.
Jasey's path from the BOE to the Assembly was helped by the Essex County Democratic organization and Senator Dick Codey.
In terms of contributions to her campaigns, the NJEA was Jasey's second largest contributor in the most recently election, giving $11,500. PreK-Our-Way funder and port tycoon Brian Maher was her largest individual donor, giving $3500.
Voting Against SFRA
Jasey joined the Assembly in November 2007. Despite her background as a BOE member in a school district whose state aid had been flat since the early 1990s, Jasey voted AGAINST the School Funding Reform Act of 2008.
Although District 27 is now entirely suburban, back in in 2008 it included Orange and parts of Newark, so Jasey's opposition may have been motivated by a desire to protect the Abbotts. Nonetheless, after SFRA was passed and approved by the Supreme Court, Jasey has been committed to it.
During the Corzine years and Christie years Jasey consistently supported a Millionaires' Tax, which would help with school funding, but she also opposed Chapter 78, which saved the state billions that could then go into operating aid.
Jasey did vote for the 2% tax cap in 2010. She also voted for the Transportation Trust Fund compromise in 2016.
Jasey has also voted for various anti-outsourcing bills that would prohibit localities from subcontracting workers and create tenure-like protections for non-teachers. These bills have been opposed by the NJSBA because they would increase costs to districts.
For Unlimited Interdistrict Choice
As a legislator, one of Jasey's signature accomplishments was the 2010 law that expanded New Jersey's Interdistrict Choice program from pilot program that capped participation at one district per county to a full-fledged state policy with unlimited district and student participation.
Under this law, the state's costs increased exponentially, going from $9.8 million a year in 2010-11 to $20 million in 2011-12 to $33 million in 2012-13 to $49 million in 2013-14.
Although by 2013-14 regular state aid was frozen and every district in District 27 was underaided, Mila Jasey attacked the Christie administration's cap on Interdistrict Choice, calling the cap "ill-advised and short-sighted."
The decision of the DOE to cap the program by imposing a 5 percent growth limit is very troublesome to me, and I am disappointed by the decision,� said state Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex).
�It circumvents the intent of the Legislature to expand the program,� she said. �Even more troubling, it thwarts the ability of interested families to follow through on their decision as to how to best meet their children's needs in a public school setting.�Although she accepted the necessity of capping Interdistrict Choice's growth, over the next few years, Jasey did very little publicly to advance state aid fairness, despite South Orange-Maplewood's and West Orange's own appeals for greater fairness in the distribution.
After Steve Sweeney began a high-profile fight in 2016 to increase school aid, redistribute Adjustment Aid, Mila Jasey stood aloof.
In 2016 Jasey, to the applause of PreK Our Way, authored legislation, with Vincent Prieto, that would dedicate an additional $110 million a year to PreK. The funding source would be the "Property Tax Relief Fund," ie, the same income tax money that funds K-12 education.
When Jasey was asked where the $110 million would come from she answered "budgets reflect priorities and I believe that we have to take the education of our children, beginning with the youngest ones, a priority." She did not actually say what else would be cut to make room for the additional $110 million per year.
In March 2016 Jasey, along with district-mate John McKeon, did sponsor a bill to increase K-12 state aid by $122 million to districts whose school tax rates exceeded 135% of the state average, a policy that would benefit her home district of South Orange-Maplewell as well as West Orange, but not many severely underaided districts whose tax rates happen to not be that high.
Although Sweeney's more comprehensive plan would have brought immediate and long-term relief, Jasey and McKeon contrasted their plan with Sweeney's by saying "unlike Senate President Sweeney's proposal, our plan could be put together within a year, not five.
Jasey also did not explain where the additional $122 million per year would come from.
Jasey has said that she favors some reduction of Adjustment Aid in some informal settings and in 2016 she implied that districts with increasing property wealth should see reductions:
Based on sometimes vague parameters - some of which were not meant to be factored into the equation - the use of adjustment aid has also failed to take into account the rise in property values within certain districts. [ibid]
Anyway, The Jasey-McKeon K-12 state aid plan attracted no co-sponsors.
Very Nuanced, Inconsistent on Charters
Jasey has also been highly nuanced stance on charter schools. A critic could say she has been inconsistent, but a supporter might say she has evolved.
Jasey was the primary sponsor in 2010-2011 of the law that allows private schools in "failing school districts" [sic] to convert to charter schools. (Its title was A-2806)
Under this law, the state would pay charter tuition the first year after a conversion, with sending-districts paying thereafter.
Jasey was also the author of the charter school "authorizer bill" which would have been helpful to charters by improving oversight. Yet, Jasey also supported requiring local votes to allow a charter to open.
At this time in 2011 Jasey said of charters:
Her daughter Rhena actually left South Orange-Maplewood to teach at a high-profile charter school in the Bronx called The Equity Project.
Perhaps it was a personal ideological change, perhaps it was a response to Christie's aggressive charter school expansion policy, or perhaps it was heeding the NJEA, but, only four years later, in 2015, Jasey had become adversarial towards charters and sponsored a moratorium on charter school creation and expansion.
Jasey's demand for a charter school moratorium brought 100 protesters to her office in the normally placid suburb of Maplewood. It also earned an angry rebuke from the Newark City Council, which voted 7-2 against a charter school moratorium, although the Newark School Advisory Board supported the moratorium.
In any case, that moratorium bill did not make it out of the Assembly Education committee.
For Prieto Until Late in the Game
Mila Jasey was a supporter of Vincent Prieto during the early stages of the Prieto-Coughlin leadership battle, but in August 2017 she switched to Coughlin along with the rest of the Essex Assembly Democratic delegation.
The above is only a state aid-focused history of Mila Jasey's positions on education, but it is also worth noting that she is strongly opposed to the PARCC exam. She also authored legislation to ban any standardized testing for students in grades K-2.
Source of Jasey quote
"N.J. charter school applications keep pouring in - State looks at 42 proposals in latest round"
Very Nuanced, Inconsistent on Charters
Jasey has also been highly nuanced stance on charter schools. A critic could say she has been inconsistent, but a supporter might say she has evolved.
Jasey was the primary sponsor in 2010-2011 of the law that allows private schools in "failing school districts" [sic] to convert to charter schools. (Its title was A-2806)
Under this law, the state would pay charter tuition the first year after a conversion, with sending-districts paying thereafter.
Jasey was also the author of the charter school "authorizer bill" which would have been helpful to charters by improving oversight. Yet, Jasey also supported requiring local votes to allow a charter to open.
At this time in 2011 Jasey said of charters:
Charter schools have an important role to play in the education of our state's children, but more clarification and accountability are necessary," said Assemblywoman Mila Jasey, (D-Essex), who also expressed concern about the Education Department's ability to provide proper oversight. "It is absolutely imperative that the application process be rigorous and that we review what charters are accomplishing in comparison to traditional public schools." (source below)
Her daughter Rhena actually left South Orange-Maplewood to teach at a high-profile charter school in the Bronx called The Equity Project.
Perhaps it was a personal ideological change, perhaps it was a response to Christie's aggressive charter school expansion policy, or perhaps it was heeding the NJEA, but, only four years later, in 2015, Jasey had become adversarial towards charters and sponsored a moratorium on charter school creation and expansion.
Jasey's demand for a charter school moratorium brought 100 protesters to her office in the normally placid suburb of Maplewood. It also earned an angry rebuke from the Newark City Council, which voted 7-2 against a charter school moratorium, although the Newark School Advisory Board supported the moratorium.
In any case, that moratorium bill did not make it out of the Assembly Education committee.
For Prieto Until Late in the Game
Mila Jasey was a supporter of Vincent Prieto during the early stages of the Prieto-Coughlin leadership battle, but in August 2017 she switched to Coughlin along with the rest of the Essex Assembly Democratic delegation.
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The above is only a state aid-focused history of Mila Jasey's positions on education, but it is also worth noting that she is strongly opposed to the PARCC exam. She also authored legislation to ban any standardized testing for students in grades K-2.
Source of Jasey quote
"N.J. charter school applications keep pouring in - State looks at 42 proposals in latest round"
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