The Metropolitan Business and Citizen’s Association (MBCA) Scholarship Foundation has announced New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education, Dr. Rochelle Hendricks, as keynote speaker for its upcoming Annual Spring Scholarship Luncheon on May 23 at the Tropicana.

Hendricks, who was appointed by Gov. Christie as the state’s first secretary of education in 2011, is also being honored with an MBCA Education Award. The event, which has given out more than $95,000 to date, awards scholarships to students who are accepted or returning to a higher education institution and enrolled in a two-year program, at least, and educators in the area. An application for one of the several scholarships being awarded this year, must include a completed form, a resume (synopsis of academic, non-academic, and volunteer work), a high-school transcript for current high-school students as well as current college students (the latter must also include all college transcripts), and a one-page essay. More details on what to include can be found on the MBCA Scholarship Foundation application form. A complete application package should be sent to the MBCA office located at 1616 Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City by April 15.

The MBCA is also gearing up for a special luncheon and presentation revealing the Tourism District Master Plan in detail. The event will be held in the Superstar Theater at Resorts Casino on March 26. Check in begins at noon with the luncheon beginning at 12:30. An attendance fee of $40 for members and $50 for non-members is required. RSVP is required by March 21. For more information on both MBCA events, go to acmetbiz.com or call 348-1903.

The Jersey City school has won four basketball national titles and 24 state titles in the past 30 seasons.  However, Christie was more impressed with the fact that St. Anthony’s has sent 100 percent of its graduates to college over the last 17 years.

What Does Governor Christie Find Most Impressive About St. Anthony’s?  1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg Reports.

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“You are an example.  What you are doing every day is an example that inspires people,” Christie said, delivering a proclamation to honor the school.

Christie told the school that setting high standards and demanding performance can “inspire the young men and women who come to your school” to realize their full potential.

Using the school’s success as a backdrop, Christie also named New Jersey’s first secretary of higher education.  Rochelle Hendricks, a former education commissioner, was tapped to help oversee policy at the state’s public and independent higher education institutions.

Gov. Christie Names Rochelle Hendricks The State’s Secretary Of High Education. WCBS 880′s Levon Putney Reports.

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“Education matters.  It matters to our economic prosperity,” Hendricks said. “It is the key to maintaining our quality of life,” Hendricks said.

Hendricks joined the state Education Department in 1987 and most recently served as deputy education commissioner.

She ran the department for a time last year after Gov. Chris Christie fired Education Commissioner Bret Schundler over a mistake on an application that might have cost the state a $400 million federal education grant.

Hendricks also oversaw Newark schools as an interim superintendent until last week when a permanent one was named.

She must be confirmed by the Senate.

(TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

The state Association of School Administrators argues the Christie administration can’t use the proposed caps to judge contracts that are currently under review.

Acting Education Commissioner Rochelle Hendricks told 21 executive county superintendents last week that any new or renegotiated contracts must comply with the cap, which still hasn’t been adopted.

Meanwhile, the Parsippany-Troy Hills school board was asking an appeals court to order the Morris executive county superintendent to approve a five-year contract extension for Superintendent Lee Seitz.

Gov. Chris Christie called Seitz “the new poster boy for all that is wrong with the public school system that’s being dictated by greed.”

(Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

The boards are trying to renegotiate contracts with the superintendents now and extend those contracts to beyond February 7, 2011, when the salary cap goes into effect.

This has led to a brewing battle between those school boards and the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, which is trying to stop the districts from getting around the cap.

Dr. Richard Bozza, the head of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, says they are considering legal action.

“Where any of our members who have not had the opportunity for the law to be followed are considering such action,” Bozza told WCBS 880 reporter Levon Putney. “We would examine that and absolutely insist that the current law be followed.”

Dr. Bozza says several school boards do not agree with the salary cap proposals, when it comes to paying enough to keep a good district leader.

On Monday, Christie said at a town hall meeting in Gloucester County’s Washington Township, “Rochelle Hendricks, my Commissioner of Education, will be sending a letter out today to the county superintendent of schools in all 21 counties telling them there are to be no contracts renegotiated above the cap before the cap goes into effect. I will not stand for it. If we’re asking teachers to sacrifice, administrators have to sacrifice too and they cannot be sitting here saying that they are some special privileged class of folks who deserve to make that kind of money when everybody else in this state is tightening their belt and making do with less. And so we’re not going to have it.”

In an e-mail to NJEA President Barbara Keshishian sent Monday night, Rochelle Hendricks said she won’t attend the Atlantic City event, which begins Thursday, because the union is only “interested in protecting the status quo that continues to fail students.”

The NJEA called Hendricks’ letter a “an insult to every teacher in New Jersey.” It said Wednesday that education commissioners have regularly attended the convention since the 1970s.

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Hendricks was asked to speak about the state of education in New Jersey and then take questions from the audience. Up to 400 union members are expected to attend.

Hendricks said the NJEA consistently has shown “it is unwilling to accept reforms that put results for our children first and use them as part of our metrics for evaluating teacher performance.”

She added: “Whenever you are ready to consider a real discussion about pursuing bold education reform, my door is open.”

The teachers’ union and Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, have been engaged in a bitter war of words since he campaigned for the governor’s office, which he assumed in January. The union supported then-Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat.

Christie named Hendricks as acting commissioner in August after he fired then-commissioner Bret Schundler shortly after news came that New Jersey had lost out on a federal education grant possibly because of a preventable administrative error.

In May, just before the Race to the Top grant application was due, Schundler made some compromises on the merit pay components of the proposal to win the endorsement of the NJEA.

Christie rejected those compromises and submitted a grant application that didn’t include them but did include an error that cost the state crucial points.

Christie fired Schundler when the two got their signals crossed over the error, and an embarrassing and very public feud followed.

Schundler later told a legislative oversight panel looking into the failed grant application that Christie “found it utterly intolerable for him to be viewed to have given in to them (the union).”

Keshishian said Hendricks appears to have learned from Schundler that “collaboration with educators on education reform issues is a fireable offense in the Christie administration.”

A new education commissioner has not been named.

(© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

KYW’s Jim Melwert reports the move comes on the same day Governor Christie fired Commissioner Brett Schundler, saying he was responsible for the mistake that likely cost the state $400 million in federal funds, and that he tried to cover it up (see previous story).

Christie had originally defended Schundler, saying the commissioner had tried to correct the mistake in a meeting with the US department of education. But a videotape of that meeting shows that wasn’t the case.

But Schundler insists he told Christie they never got the panel the numbers.

However, the governor’s office disputes that.

The governor’s spokesman goes so far as to accuse Schundler of revisionist history, adding “he’s sullying his own image.”