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With the formation of a new commission, students at Jewish schools in New Jersey should at least be in the discussion to receive more funding for needs that are fully subsidized for public school students.

On Dec. 22, outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine established the Non-Public Education Funding Commission to evaluate the needs of non-public school children and determine what services and funding those students are entitled to. The 23-member committee, co-chaired by Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-36) and Dr. George Corwell, director of education for the New Jersey Catholic Conference, will issue its first recommendations to the governor and the state legislature in June.

Jewish community officials are hoping those recommendations include proposed changes in law or regulation that give Jewish yeshivas and day schools access to state funding for textbooks, nursing, security, transportation, and technology, among other needs. Currently, the only money non-public schools and their families receive from New Jersey is $142 per student per year for textbook and nursing aid, with some children receiving transportation funds depending on the municipality.

Joshua Pruzansky of Highland Park, director of Agudath Israel of New Jersey (AINJ), said that since public and private school families are funding state education through the same property taxes, there is no reason private school students shouldn't be eligible for certain benefits public school students receive.

"Why is it that one child is entitled to everything and another is entitled to nothing?" Pruzansky told The Jewish State.

Specifically among the Orthodox Jewish community, many people live in municipalities that earmark over 60 percent of their property tax dollars for public education, according to AINJ, giving them a double burden: paying for their own children's private school education as well as that of public school children.

Pruzansky explained that non-public schools save New Jersey taxpayers more than $2.75 billion each year in education costs, in addition to billions of dollars saved in capital costs that would be necessary if these students were to attend public schools. According to AINJ's statistics, there are over 27,000 students in New Jersey's Jewish day school system, with Jewish families spending a total of $250 million on education per year. The number of Jewish day school students will increase by 52 percent in the next five to eight years, based on AINJ's projections.

Schaer, who is based out of Passaic and in 2006 became the first Orthodox Jew in the New Jersey Legislature, told The Jewish State that additional funding for the needs of non-public school students would come from the same place that public school money comes from: state-levied property tax, income tax, and sales tax. Finding additional funds in the state budget during a recession could be a difficult challenge, but "that's the job of the governor and the legislature," not the new commission, he said.

"The job of the commission is to determine the needs and to justify the needs," Schaer said.

However, Schaer did acknowledge that as the vice president of the Assembly Budget Committee, it will be part of his job down the road to help find where extra state funds for education are.

For now, Schaer said he is sure of one thing: It is his "fundamental belief" that the state has an obligation to fund the needs of non-public school students more so than it does now, and that New Jersey has the room to do so without crossing church-state lines.

"Ideally, it will be my hope that as a result of the commission's work, the state will recognize its obligation to fund certain aspects of the yeshiva education," Schaer said.

AINJ has been at the forefront of talking to elected officials about the educational needs of the Jewish and all other religious communities, Pruzansky said, noting that he serves on the New Jersey Non-Public School Advisory Committee to discuss these issues. It is important for the Jewish community to understand that Christian, Muslim, and other religious schools have the same needs and must work together on this effort, he said.

Regarding whether the new committee should go beyond needs like textbooks, nursing, and transportation by looking at funding religious school tuition, Pruzansky said what needs to be considered is that yeshiva tuition includes religious instruction, which the state can't pay for, but also secular instruction. Vouchers for secular education at Jewish schools would be welcome down the road, but that's not something the commission will focus on initially, Pruzansky said.

"To me, the significance of this commission is the fact that the state will actually have a body of individuals studying the funding or lack thereof to non-public schools," he said.

The Orthodox Union (OU) said that the new commission was first discussed at an OU- facilitated meeting in October between Corzine and Orthodox Jewish leadership. While Corzine and others at the meeting differed on tax credit and similar programs, Corzine agreed that more should be done for New Jersey's students regardless of where they are educated. At that time, Corzine committed to establishing a study commission as a first step in that process, the OU said.

"We are grateful to the outgoing Governor, Jon Corzine, for keeping his word, as are families across New Jersey, for whom this will be a fitting legacy and capstone to the Governor's tenure," Howie Beigelman, the OU's deputy director of public policy, said in a statement.

With Corzine's term winding down, it will be Governor-elect Chris Christie who oversees the commission moving forward. Since Christie spoke many times on the campaign trail about his commitment to the issue of school choice, the Jewish community has every reason to be confident that Christie will support their needs, Schaer said.