NJ Education Report

The big NJ education news today is that Gov. Christie nominated two justices for the State Supreme Court, Phillip Kwon and Bruce Harris, to replace Virginia Long and John Wallace. (See NJ Spotlight and ABC News for more detail.) His nominees, if confirmed, would certain add some diversity to the bench. (Right now all the justices are white; Kwon was born in Korea and Harris is black and openly gay).

But the real question is how the new justices would rule when Gov. Christie, as expected, mounts a challenge to the School Funding Reform Act.

Historically, the State Supreme Court has been proactive supporters of NJ’s solution to our segregated and inequitable education system: compensate for the disparity in opportunity between, say, Cherry Hill and Camden by funneling money to our poorest school districts. Depending upon whom you ask, the Abbott solution (named for the first plaintiff, Raymond Abbott, in the original suit filed by Education Law Center) has been either a progressive work in progress or an abject failure.

The original decision was adjudicated in the 1980’s and the Court’s ruling came down in 1991. By that time, Ray Abbott, a poor student in Camden, was in jail for stealing cars and TV’s. He also had a nasty drug habit. In 1990 the New York Times interviewed Abbott and his mom:

”I don’t like to play the ‘what if’ game,” Mrs. Cherry said. ”I don’t blame the Camden schools for the situation my son is in now. He probably would be in the same kind of trouble if he went to the richest school in the world.” Mr. Abbott, in an interview at the Camden County Jail, said, ”The schools were not responsible. Maybe if they had a better program, I might have gotten more involved and stayed out of trouble. But it was my responsibility, and not the schools’, who I hung out with.”

No word on the whereabouts of Mr. Abbott now.