A call
to revamp school funding
State panel drafts report spurred
by appeal of 7 poor districts seeking Abbott status
Friday, November 04, 2005 • BY JOHN MOONEY •
Star-Ledger Staff
An influential state panel is warning
that New Jersey's school funding could be unconstitutional
for potentially dozens of poor districts and calls on the
state to "re-examine our entire educational
system."
Still under revision, the draft report by
the legal committee of the state Board of Education stems
from an appeal by seven poor South Jersey districts. The
districts seek to be part of the Abbott v. Burke school
equity decision and, in turn, eligible for millions in extra
state aid.
The legal committee's latest draft, dated
Sept. 21 and obtained by The Star-Ledger this week,
recommends the full board largely side with the
districts.
But it would stop short of calling for
immediate aid to the schools, saying it is "time to abandon
our reliance on money as a surrogate for either educational
equity or adequacy."
And moving outside these select districts
and those falling under the Abbott rulings, the report would
demand the state rethink its funding system as a
whole.
"We believe that the time has come to
re-examine our entire educational system and the premises
upon which it rests," said the committee in its 69-page
report.
The potential impact of the pending
report is unclear. The state board itself is not expected to
act until December at the earliest, and revisions are
ongoing as the various parties in the case -- including the
state Department of Education itself -- have raised concerns
and questions.
State officials have also already begun
to revamp how schools are monitored and funded, and they
raised several exceptions to the legal committee's report,
including the state board's authority to set broad policy
off the legal appeals of a few districts.
The state board, among its many
functions, serves as a quasi-judicial body that hears and
decides legal challenges to rulings of the state
commissioner and administrative courts.
And on the eve of Tuesday's elections,
the next governor and Legislature are sure to bring still
more initiatives to the debate.
But if adopted, such a statement by the
state Board of Education would be a bold step for the
usually subdued body in New Jersey's often-debated school
funding system.
Part of the report would order the state
commissioner to devise a new system for ensuring schools
have adequate programs. And it would put a heavy emphasis on
looking well past the money spent in guaranteeing a
"thorough and efficient" education, as afforded under the
state constitution.
"We believe that, as the head of the
Department of Education and the body responsible for
education policy," the draft reads, "we must take
responsibility for redefining the meaning of a thorough and
efficient education in educational rather than financial
terms."
Efforts to reach the attorney
representing the school districts were unsuccessful, and
other parties mostly withheld judgment, given the report
remains preliminary. Even if approved, some pointed out the
limits of the state board's words.
"They can only go so far since they can't
adopt a new funding formula for the state," said David
Sciarra, director of the Education Law Center, which led the
Abbott suit and has submitted testimony in this
case.
"What it might do is put on the table for
the new Legislature and administration the whole question of
how we fund schools in this state," he said. "The way we do
it now was never suitable for any district in the
state."
The case dates to 1997 when 17 districts
appealed to the state education commissioner to be included
in the programs ordered under Abbott v. Burke, the
decades-old case in which the state Supreme Court mandated
massive reforms and funding in 30 urban
districts.
Named after Rosalie Bacon, a Buena mother
named as an original plaintiff, Bacon v. New Jersey
Department of Education ultimately led to Salem City
becoming the 31st Abbott district.
Through further appeals and hearings
before an administrative law judge, the list of remaining
plaintiffs was winnowed down to seven districts, all from
the state's rural south. Each is poor, and several are
smaller districts that feed into Abbott schools but don't
qualify under the current rules that largely restrict Abbott
to urban schools.
The districts are Buena Regional,
Clayton, Egg Harbor, Fairfield, Lakehurst, Lawrence and
Woodbine, and the state board's committee said it found in
them a compelling case of children being
shortchanged.
Buena Regional has one social worker for
the whole district, for example, and Clayton was the only
high school in the state without an auditorium or art
room.
Woodbine is the second poorest community
in the state, behind Camden, and has a dearth of school
programs, the committee said. A fifth of its students are
classified for special education, but there is no full-time
child study team or guidance counselor.
Although Woodbine schools were monitored
and certified by the state, "even the (state department's)
own witnesses could not bring themselves to say the district
was providing a thorough and efficient education," the
report said.
John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at
jmooney@starledger.com, or (973) 392-1548.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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