News Clip Archive
January 2008
Governor Signs Historic School Funding Reform Initiative
PRINCETON - Governor Jon S. Corzine today signed the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, establishing for the first time in a decade a new system of funding for public school districts throughout New Jersey.
"This historic legislation that I am signing today provides a significant shift away from the ad-hoc, patchwork system of state aid that has been used for years to fund our schools," said Governor Corzine. "I am proud that with this new law, we are finally putting the needs of all children on an equal footing by replacing a flawed system with this equitable, balanced and non-partisan formula. Our children, regardless of where they live, will now have the educational resources they truly deserve in order to succeed."
The new formula builds upon the state’s existing high quality educational system which tops the nation in per-pupil spending. Under the new formula, approximately $7.8 billion will be distributed for K-12 education for the FY2009 fiscal year, an increase of approximately $550 million. All districts will receive a state aid increase of at least 2 percent during the first year, and no districts will see a decrease in total state aid during the first three years of the program. Decreases in aid in later years would only occur if districts experience significant declines in overall enrollment or in enrollment categories.
Furthermore, the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 calls for an expansion of high quality preschool for all at-risk students across the state. This initiative will be phased in over six years and will lead to improvements in educational outcomes and economic benefits.
"The Governor should be applauded for the time and energy that went into developing an equitable school funding plan that addresses the individual needs of New Jersey students. It's time that we had a 21st century formula to address 21st century needs," said Senate President Richard J. Codey (D-Essex).
"New Jersey is filling a policy void that has been allowed to languish for far too long," said Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr. (D-Camden). "Our schools and taxpayers deserve the certainty in funding that only a constitutional and equitable formula can provide."
"We finally have a funding formula that treats every district fairly and breaks down the arbitrary walls separating Abbott and non-Abbott school districts," said Senator Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex). "This is only the first step in making sure every child receives a high quality education, no matter where he or she lives."
The work on developing a formula began more than half a decade ago, and the legislation is the result of intensive work by Department of Education, administration officials, legislators and stakeholders.
"This a major step forward for education reform in our state," said Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy. "The new funding formula ties together a number of initiatives that the Governor and the department have been working on for two years: It helps to ensure that all of our children are prepared for success in the 21st century world by providing for an equitable distribution of resources and it increases the resources we are providing. It also requires districts to adhere to the efficiency reforms embodied in CORE and the district performance accountability reforms embodied in the new state monitoring system and the new student level data base."
The Attorney General has stated that the new formula meets the constitutional requirement of providing a thorough and efficient system of education for New Jersey students.
"After decades of court rulings and ad-hoc funding plans that balkanized our state, New Jersey finally has a formula that every student, school, and taxpayer can depend on," said Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Middlesex). "We have removed the blinders that prevented us from viewing each child as equal to his or her peers, drove a wedge between our cities and suburbs, and pushed our property tax system to the very brink of collapse."
"Today marks the end of a journey that has spanned six years, three administrations, and thousands of work hours," said Assemblyman Herb Conaway, M.D. (D-Burlington). "This is a formula we believe the state Supreme Court will agree meets needs of students, communities, boards, and taxpayers – all of whom crave certainty and predictability for the future."
Senator Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) was the primary sponsor of A500/S4000 in the Senate. In addition to Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr. (D-Camden), Assemblymen Joseph Vas (D-Middlesex) and Herb Conaway, Jr., M.D. (D-Burlington), other primary sponsors of the bill were Assemblymen Louis D. Greenwald (D-Camden), Joseph Cryan (D-Union), John J. Burzichelli (D-Gloucester), Patrick J. Diegnan, Jr. (D-Middlesex), David R. Mayer (D-Gloucester) and Neil M. Cohen (D-Union).
Scientists Identify Gene Link to Autism
Scientists have found a variation in a gene that may raise the risk of developing autism, especially when the variant is inherited from mothers rather than fathers. The gene, CNTNAP2, makes a protein that enables brain cells to communicate with each other through chemical signals and appears to play a role in brain cell development. Results of the study were reported online January 10 in the American Journal of Human Genetics by Aravinda Chakravarti, Ph.D., Dan E. Arking, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with Edwin Cook, M.D., and colleagues from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
"Autism is highly heritable," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. "Identifying the genes involved is crucial to our ability to map out the pathology of this isolating and sometimes terribly disabling disease, which currently has no cure." The assertion that the CNTNAP2 gene appears to be involved is strengthened by the fact that each of the different analytical approaches the researchers used in this study led to the same conclusion. Results were replicated in a second, larger group of participants, further implicating the gene. Together, the two groups of participants comprised one of the largest autism studies reported to date.
Using a technique called genome-wide linkage analysis, the researchers found that a chromosome, 7q35, appeared to be linked to the disease. Looking deeper into that chromosome, they identified a gene -- CNTNAP2 -- that contained a variant relevant to autism. Where a single segment of the genetic code could contain either the chemical base adenine or thymine, children with autism tended to have inherited the thymine variant.
"This is a common variant," Chakravarti said. "People inherit it all the time. Our finding that it's associated with autism more often when it's inherited from mothers is intriguing, but needs to replicated. CNTNAP2 is an excellent candidate gene for autism. It encodes a protein that's known to mediate interactions between brain cells and that appears to enable a crucial aspect of brain-cell development. A gene variant that altered either of these activities could have significant impact."
Children with Autism May Have Abnormal Functioning of Mirror Neuron System
Using a novel imaging technique, researchers have found that children with autism spectrum disorders have more gray matter in the brain area that governs social processing and learning-by-seeing than children who don't have the developmental disorder. Basically, the "monkey see, monkey do" feature is broken in youngsters with autism, according to researcher Manzar Ashtari, Ph.D, of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. First observed in the macaque monkey, this is the brain system that governs our ability to empathize and learn by watching another person.
Ashtari conducted the study while at the Fay J. Lindner Center for Autism in North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Bethpage, N.Y. She studied mirror neurons -- brain cells that activate when you perform an action, experience an emotion and when you see someone else doing the same thing. "Our findings suggest that an inability of the child with autism to relate to people and life situations in an ordinary way is the result of an abnormally functioning mirror neuron system," Ashtari reported.
The study, presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, involved 13 boys with "high-functioning" autism or Asperger's Disorder and an IQ greater than 70 and 12 neurotypical boys with an average age of 11. Brain function was assessed using a combination of two techniques: diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and apparent diffusion coefficient based morphometry (ABM). Results showed that the children with ASDs had increased gray matter in brain regions of the parietal lobes that control our sense of environment. The children then underwent tests that assess learning and behavior.
"The larger the gray matter in the parietal lobes, the more restricted and the more stereotyped the behavior of the child," Ashtari said, adding that in the neurotypical children, the larger the gray matter in the parietal area, the higher the IQ. "But in the autistic brain, increased gray matter does not correspond to IQ, because this gray matter is not functioning properly," she said.
Scientists Identify Gene Link to Autism
Brain overgrowth in the latter part of an infant's first year may contribute to the onset of autistic characteristics, according to new research. These findings support concurrent research, which found brain overgrowth in children with autism as young as two years old. Lead researcher Joseph Piven, M.D., Director of the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and an American College of Neuropsychopharacology (ACNP) member, said that behavioral studies of infants at high risk for autism suggest that the onset of most behavioral symptoms, which define the disorder, such as problems with social interaction, also occur at about age one. "One reason these findings are important is because early post-natal onset raises the possibility that there may
be a window for early treatment and prevention that could be identified by future studies," Piven stated during the ACNP's annual meeting last December.
In normal brain development, neuronal connections are eliminated through a process called "pruning." This process refines normal brain connections and increases the efficiency of remaining connections in the brain. Piven said one possibility is that there is less pruning in children with autism and therefore, their brains become larger than in children without autism. Piven cautioned that while the study seems to suggest a link between brain overgrowth and autism, there are many variants of autism among children, so the ways in which children with autism develop and are affected by brain growth can greatly vary. Follow-up studies on children younger than two years old are currently underway.
Brain Overgrowth in Infants Linked to Autism
The Associated Press on January 9 reported that a rare genetic variation dramatically raises the risk of developing autism, a large study showed, opening new research targets for better understanding the disorder and for treating it.
Research into the causes of autism has focused on genetic causes because so many families have multiple children with the disorder. Thus far, only about 10 percent of autism cases have a known genetic cause. Boston-area researchers estimate the gene glitch they've identified accounts for another 1 percent of cases.
They found a segment of a chromosome which has genes linked to brain development and various developmental disorders was either missing or duplicated far more often in autistic people. The defect was inherited in some cases, but more often the result of a random genetic accident.
The results from the Autism Consortium study, released online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, confirm those of smaller studies by U.S. and Canadian research groups in the past year. The consortium verified its findings by checking two other DNA databases.
"They really did nail it," said Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, director of the Kennedy Krieger Institute's Center for Autism & Related Disorders in Baltimore, who was not involved in the research.
He predicted children newly diagnosed with autism or other developmental disorders now will be tested for this defect on chromosome 16 and that studies of many more DNA samples may reveal other autism-related gene variations.
Already, the findings are starting to be used to give some parents long-sought answers to burning questions: What caused autism in their child and how likely is it that any future children also would have autism, long known to run in families?
"We've provided very compelling evidence that this particular small stretch of the genome provides an important clue to the biological roots of autism," said lead researcher Mark J. Daly, an assistant genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and an investigator for the consortium, which includes researchers from 14 Boston-area universities and medical centers.
When the biological pathways involved are figured out, scientists can try to design drugs to target chemicals in the brain to treat autism, said Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of the advocacy group Autism Speaks.
"I think chromosome 16 is now going to be a hotbed for autism research," said Thomas Lehner, head of the genomic research branch at the National Institute of Mental Health. "It gives us a very important lead."
Another study researcher, Dr. David Miller of Children's Hospital Boston, said the chromosome 16 variations increased the risk of autism a hundredfold. But he said the disorder must be due to a combination of genetic variations since there were cases of people who had the defect but didn't have autism.
Dr. Linda Brzustowicz, a Rutgers University genetics professor, said it could be that there are "a whole bunch of little causes" of autism.
"Every time you get one additional piece into the jigsaw puzzle, that makes fitting in the next piece easier," she said.
Autism, a complex, poorly understood disorder, is characterized by repetitive behaviors and poor social interaction and communication skills. Research has mainly centered on genetic causes, and on whether it could be caused by the mercury-based preservative once used in childhood vaccines, which has been repeatedly discounted.
The number of children diagnosed with autism has risen in recent years to as many as one in 150 American children, but experts are unsure whether its prevalence really is increasing or the trend is due to a broader definition of autism.
For their study, consortium researchers scanned all 46 chromosomes from DNA samples from 1,441 children with autism or related disorders. They also scanned DNA from most of their parents and 2,800 other people, none known to have autism.
The researchers found a 25-gene segment of chromosome 16 was missing in five children with autism; none of their parents had the deletion. That shows that in some cases the genetic glitch is not inherited from the parents, but instead due to a random accident while an egg or sperm is being formed.
Another seven autistic children had a chromosome 16 duplication, but all but one had parents with the same duplication.
The researchers confirmed their findings by looking at DNA databases from Children's Hospital Boston and Iceland. The same defect was found in 1 percent of those with autism or related disorders. It was found in just seven of about 19,000 Iceland samples from people without the disorder.
$5 Million Set to Begin Addressing Growing Needs of People with Autism
TRENTON -- New Jersey Department of Human Services' (DHS) Commissioner Jennifer Velez, addressing families of people with autism at Hackensack University Medical Center, yesterday announced the DHS Division of Developmental Disabilities' (DDD) goals to expand services to the autism community in New Jersey. In order to address the state's growing number of people with autism, Governor Jon S. Corzine and state legislators included in the state Fiscal Year 2008 budget, $5 million designed to increase services to people with autism.
Commissioner Velez described the department's goals to family members: "Our first goal is to increase services and supports to adults with autism," said Commissioner Velez. "This is absolutely critical because statistics show that, in New Jersey, one in 95 children is diagnosed with autism. That means there will be more services needed for children and adults in our communities."
Additional goals include providing services to children with autism and increasing the ability of the Autism Center at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to provide a comprehensive medical program for people with autism. "All of these goals are valuable and by achieving them, we are taking responsible steps toward addressing the needs of the autistic community here in New Jersey," said Commissioner Velez.
The $5 million expansion of autism services includes:
- $3 million to increase the amount of services available to adults with autism such as respite care, job coaching, transportation and in-home supports through the DDD "Real Life Choices" at-home service option. Real Life Choices provides a budget, based on an individual's needs, for a family to utilize to obtain needed services. These funds will serve a total of 62 adults from the DDD waiting list: nine of these adults have begun receiving services and 53 more people on the waiting list will begin receiving services by the end of this fiscal year on June 30.
- $1 million to double the amount of respite care and family support services for families who have children at home with autism. These funds will assist several hundred additional children and their families per year.
- $500,000 will increase the capacity of the Autism Center at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) to provide patients and their families with access to a comprehensive medical program for individuals with autism.
- $500,000 has been provided to the state Department of Health and Senior Services for an Autism Registry, for the reporting of diagnoses of autism. These funds will enhance the knowledge and understanding of autism to both better plan for and provide services to children and adults with autism and to analyze contributing factors to the cause of the increase in autism.
DDD quick facts about services to people with autism:
- New Jersey has the highest incidence of autism in the nation at 1 in 95 children, compared to the national average of 1 in 150 children according to the latest federal Centers for Disease Control report.
- DDD serves 6,880 people of all ages with autism or autism spectrum disorders in the community (data through September 2007).
- Between 1999 and late 2007 the number of people with autism who are provided services by DDD in the community has grown by 218 percent, or 4,601 individuals.
- There are 5,544 individuals with autism served by DDD that are under 22 years of age. Most live with their families and receive primarily respite care or other in-home supports. Approximately 126 of these children are graduating from school in June 2008 and will be provided with personal skill training or employment programs.
- Of the total 6,880 people with autism, 703 reside outside the family home, in settings such as group homes, supervised apartments and "community care" homes where an individual lives with a trained caretaker.
- DDD currently spends more than $31 million per year on Medicaid Community Care Waiver eligible services for people with autism, plus $2 million in funding specifically appropriated for respite services for individuals with autism.
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