Next year end of state controlling schools?

A decision on when and how Jersey City and the two other state-operated school districts will go back to at least some local control is probably still another year away, according to the state's education chief.

Acting Commissioner Lucille Davy laid out the revised timetable Thursday before the Assembly education committee, saying a new state monitoring system will start in the three state-run districts next school year.

But in some of her most detailed comments yet, Davy said by the end of the 2006-07 school year, officials should be able to determine the fate of the state's decade-plus oversight in Jersey City, Newark and Paterson schools.

"A year from now we will know which areas, if any, in each district is ready to go back to local control," she said. "It could be sooner than that, but that's the outside date."

Davy said each district will face different time frames, but added that she was confident they would all see at least some ceding of the state's role.

Jersey City's schools have been under state operation since 1989, and Paterson and Newark were taken over in 1991 and 1995, respectively. The takeovers followed records of mismanagement and low student performance, although the state's oversight since then has brought mixed results.

The new monitoring system - known as the Quality Single Accountability Continuum - would revamp how the state oversees all of its schools, laying out a checklist of dozens of areas that districts will need to meet in finance, instruction and personnel.

The detailed rules are currently before the state Board of Education, with final adoption still months away.