NJ Education Report

New Jersey’s noble quest to give kids equal educational opportunity regardless of economic circumstance skitters along. This quixotic journey, otherwise known as Abbott v. Burke, hit a pothole when Corzine flailed about with his new School Funding Reform Act over the summer, which attempted to eliminate the designation “Abbott” from our fiscal vocabulary. But this week the Supreme Court ruled that they didn’t have enough information to tell if the SFRA would supply poor districts with as much money as rich districts and told Bergen Superior Judge Peter Doyne to figure it out. In the meantime, districts-formally-know-as-Abbott -and-once -again-called-Abbott get to hold onto their sweet allocations and even ask for more.

The astonishing thing here is that New Jersey is constitutionally bound to give our most impoverished kids an education equivalent to that bestowed on children who live in our wealthiest communities. Beginning in 1997 the State started generously subsidizing these 31 urban communities and over the last 10 years has spent $3.5 billion. A year ago the New York Times reported that

Asbury Park spent $23,572 per student, according to the census, while the highest-ranking non-Abbott district, Wildwood City, spent $19,912. The state average was $13,613, and the national average was $8,315.

The equation is Circe-like in its appeal. Spend equal amounts of money and you get equal amounts of academic achievement.

We can argue about whether or not this works (it doesn’t), but more interesting is the entire oxymoronic enterprise. New Jersey is defined by its endless infatuation with local control. This means that school districts as well as municipalities have their own values, agendas, priorities, what have you. This town pampers its parks. That town touts its historical monuments. But the moral dimension of this differentiated governance is offensive when you’re talking about impoverished children. So we try to square it by throwing money at the poor towns in a heroic attempt to equalize opportunity within an unequalized system. Or, more recently, by passing legislation that turns the DOE into a wild geyser recklessly spewing out misbegotten regulations.

Here’s a sampling of some of the reactions to this week’s court decision:

The Star-Ledger cautiously applauded:

There are flaws in Abbott. For years, the state was lax in keeping watch over the billions spent. That is one reason the judicially inspired garden is only now beginning to sprout. With better application of what the court ordered, Abbott districts might be in bloom.

Bill Baroni, State Representative from Hamilton in Mercer, is less sanguine:

“It is clear that the Abbott funding system hasn’t worked — we are spending some of the largest sums of money in the country in those schools, but we are not seeing the full effect of it,” said State Representative Bill Baroni, a Republican from Hamilton in Mercer County. “In some districts we have seen real academic success, and in others we haven’t.”

The Education Law Center high-fived in a press release:

In a unanimous opinion, the New Jersey Supreme Court today stepped-in to protect the educational rights of the State’s most needy school children by ordering a remand in the landmark Abbott v. Burke case to fully vet the constitutionality of the Legislature’s new school funding formula, the School Funding Reform Act of 2008.

And,

Abbott v. Burke is widely recognized as establishing a national model for educational equity, and the rulings are considered the most significant in the advancement of equal educational opportunities since Brown v. Board of Education.

Paul Mulshine compared Corzine to Stephen Garcia, a University of South Carolina quarterback who was tackled near the goal line – by a referee(!):

It’s been 35 years since the court first took from the other two branches of government the control of school funding. Over the years, the 31 so-called “Abbott districts” – named for the decision in the infamous Abbott vs. Burke case – gradually took more and more of the state’s school aid. Those districts now get to eat up more than half the state aid while the remaining 580 districts fight over the crumbs.

Mulshine also quotes a “livid” Ray Lesniak:

The Supreme Court has overstepped its bounds and gone too far,” he said. “We’re going to have to do something about it.