In an editorial, former Jersey City Board of Education Trustee Alexander Hamilton gives his take on why the local school budget crisis is about more than money.
Jersey City is one of the most diverse cities in the country—roughly a quarter Asian, a quarter Hispanic, about a quarter White, and about one-fifth Black.
It is also a city of growing wealth, with median household income approaching $100,000.
But those headlines obscure a more complicated truth: about one in six residents—roughly 45,000 to 48,000 people—still live in poverty, and many more are part of a large working-class population struggling to remain in the city they love.
The tension between growth and displacement sits at the center of Jersey City’s school budget crisis.
In recent years, enrollment in Jersey City Public Schools has declined even as the city’s population has grown to nearly 292,000.
At the same time, approximately 7,000 students attend charter schools, reflecting both family choice and demand for alternatives. The result is a structural imbalance: a growing city with a shrinking district base, even as fixed costs remain.
The reasons are not difficult to identify. Rapid housing development—particularly along the waterfront and in high-density areas—has driven up costs and reshaped who can afford to live here.
Working-class families are being pushed out, often gradually: through rising rents, non-renewal of leases, and quiet relocation before crisis ever appears in official data. Over time, this displacement adds up.
At the same time, many new residents are not enrolling their children in the public school system.
The result is uneven demand: some neighborhoods are growing rapidly but contributing little to district enrollment, while others—particularly in the south and west of Jersey City—are left with underenrolled schools.
But enrollment alone does not explain the challenge. Academic performance must also be part of this conversation.
Across New Jersey, fewer than half of students meet grade-level expectations in reading and mathematics. In urban districts like Jersey City, outcomes are often lower.
In recent years, English Language Arts proficiency has hovered around 40–45%, while math proficiency has been closer to 30–35%, with even lower outcomes for Black and Hispanic students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.
These are not abstract numbers—they are indicators of whether students are being prepared for the future.
And that future is already here. Jersey City is becoming a hub for finance, technology, and the rapidly expanding film industry.
These sectors demand strong literacy, numeracy, and technical skills. Without that foundation, too many students will be locked out of the very opportunities growing around them.
We risk building a city where opportunity expands while access to it shrinks.
This is why the school budget conversation cannot be reduced to revenue and cuts. The issue is structural.
It requires confronting difficult questions: how to align the school system with current and projected enrollment, how to address under-enrolled schools strategically, and how to improve instructional quality so that every student can succeed.
As the district considers a 17% tax increase, a more fundamental question emerges: what, exactly, are we paying for?
Are we addressing long-standing capital needs and ensuring school facilities reflect the dignity and potential of our students?
Are we making changes that will produce measurable improvements in learning outcomes—so students graduate ready for college, careers, and a rapidly evolving economy?
Or are we sustaining a system because it is familiar, even when it is not delivering the results students need?
If this tax increase does not strengthen the core elements of education—instruction, infrastructure, and outcomes—then the harder question remains: what are we doing?
Jersey City is growing. It is diversifying. It is becoming a defining city of the future.
The question is whether its public school system will evolve with it—or whether that future will be built around, and without, the students already here.
I’d love to see some administrator salaries. Also I wouldn’t mind seeing the salaries of a few of the long time tenured teachers. Oh and how many people might be employed there as well. Oh wait you mean we can?
Here are the top administrators
Fernandez 267k
Ruan 218k
Savino 204k
Luce 203k
Sanchez-Abreu 202k
Some of these have titles like special assistant or director of professional growth… wtf?
These salaries go up every single year.
Number of salaried employees:
4248
That’s 6 to 1 student to employee ratio. The national average is 15.4 to 1. With a ratio like that we should have the absolute best students in the country. But we don’t.
New Jersey schools, in general are full of these types of grifts.
Jersey city public schools spends over a quarter of a billion dollars on salaries alone. 346.3 million to be exact That there is your problem.
Great job pointing this out!
Let’s not forget corruption. Like when the school board along with Lincoln high, allowed one organization ( BIE) to fleece us out of over 250.000$ . That’s 1/4 million $$$!!!
Your take on the situation runs the gamut touching on variables that warrant further consideration and offer a viable platform for planning major educational improvements. Hopefully key players and decision makers are listening.