The Record,Sunday, April5 2009

Front Page  Opinion:

Abbott ruling: Single formula benefits all

Sunday April 5, 2009

BY LYNNE STRICKLAND

NorthJersey.com

Executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools.

SCHOOL FUNDING in New Jersey is ever evolving. But always underneath the process lies some issue, somewhere, that impacts a school and its community. Somewhere, someone is worried there is not enough support for his children. And everyone seems to have an opinion that too little or too much is being spent.

We care about school funding because it hits us where it matters: in our hearts — our children — and in our homes and wallets, through property taxes and property values.

We want the best for kids and also for schools and for taxpayers and communities. It’s the “how” of it that stymies us, gives us angst, and, too often, divides us.

It must be underscored: The overwhelming majority of folks have always supported the needs of Abbott children, and children with special needs regardless of where they live.

The recent recommendations on the School Funding Reform Act formula by Judge Peter Doyne to the Supreme Court would result in a unitary formula for all of New Jersey’s schools. That is a good thing.

Desire for a unified formula is based on years of experience treading water in a divided sea. One system of funding our schools unifies goals and objectives for all schools and all children. The formula must be sensitive to the differences in each child’s needs, and support those needs with stability and fairness.

Under the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, all at-risk students defined as poor would receive increased funding, no matter where they reside. Today, 49 percent of those children in New Jersey live outside Abbott communities.

A three-year bridge

Doyne’s recommendations stipulate a minimum of a three-year bridge for Abbott districts to argue for supplemental aid. This allows for time to analyze the actual impact of the Funding Reform Act for the Abbotts and also provides a funding safety net for those districts in a transitional time.

It also allows all schools to be under the same funding system for the first time in recent history. We need this gift of time to see if this can work.

By 1992, New Jersey’s public education advocates were already divided by judicial and legislative decisions that impacted local districts. Altogether, all districts not among the 31 Abbott districts — rural, low- and middle-

income and wealthier regular operating districts — continued to be labeled as “non-Abbotts.”

Those districts were lumped together in Trenton for ease of reference, likely as well for convenience in simplifying policy decisions.

The semantic device of referring to “non-Abbotts” is demonstrative of a divide-and-conquer attitude that could not help but find its way into the annual school funding picture. The result: divided education advocacy and weakened impact for much of the school community.

Talk about quality education and how to move forward on that front were too often placed on the back burner.

After 2000, the funding context for Abbott districts improved to the point that the Abbotts as a whole were the highest funded group of districts by $3,000 to $4,000 per pupil, while having the lowest tax rates in the state. In the early Nineties, the reverse had been true. The time is right for a new formula.

Imperfect

It is certainly true that the issues inherent in any new school funding law are complicated, requiring differentiation and on-going improvement. Just because the Funding Reform Act unifies all districts, it is not perfect, as Doyne notes in his recommendations.

Many folks overlook that the Funding Reform Act is only one part of what happens in school funding. Spending needs and school budget requirements are compounded by state laws, such as the tax levy cap, the empowerment of the elevated “executive” county superintendent, and new and much tighter accountability regulations.

Also, something does not ring true when 60-plus percent of New Jersey districts require support above the state’s so-called “adequacy budget.” Special education aid is an issue as well. These are clear signals that far more work needs to be done to synchronize funding and program support with the reality of fixed cost increases.

We have a shot at it if, like a unitary formula, advocacy is combined and sharpened.

Having all school districts under the same advocacy umbrella will offer a realistic opportunity for much-needed focus, impact and quality educational conversation to benefit all children in all communities.

Doyne’s recommendations give us the gift of time and that is important. It gives us the long-awaited opportunity to catch our breath, collaborate and look forward to talk in practical terms about why we are all working hard to be heard at the education table, because what we really want to talk about is high quality education and how to achieve that goal for all children, especially those at-risk.

_{Lynne Strickland is the executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools.}

_{Send comments about this article to grad@northjersey.com.}

The Record,Sunday April 5,2009,Front Page Opinion:

Abbott ruling: A return to the bad old days

Sunday April 5, 2009,\

BY ALAN R. SADOVNIK

NorthJersey.com

Alan R. Sadovnik is Professor of Education, Sociology and Public Affairs at Rutgers University-Newark, where he co-directs its Institute on Education Law and Policy.

WHEN I TELL colleagues from other countries that schools in most low-income neighborhoods in the United States receive significantly less funding than schools in affluent neighborhoods, they are perplexed. Why, they ask, would children with the greatest educational needs receive less than children with the greatest advantages? In most other Western democracies, it is exactly the opposite.

Because of Abbott v. Burke, New Jersey has defied this unfortunate and inexplicable national pattern. Students in our 31 special needs urban districts — the Abbott districts — receive funding at the levels of the state’s most affluent districts, and have a variety of programs designed to overcome their poverty and educational disadvantage.

That may change, however, if the New Jersey Supreme Court were to adopt Judge Peter E. Doyne’s recent recommendations.

Judge Doyne, serving as a special master, has concluded that the state’s new school funding law, the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA), should be found constitutional so long as supplemental funding continues to be available to the Abbott districts for at least three more years.

Such a decision could reverse Abbott’s extraordinary gains and return New Jersey to the bad old days, when at-risk children failed to receive the resources and programs necessary for them to achieve at the levels required in the 21st century.

A national model

Abbott has led to New Jersey’s recognition as a national model of fairness, equity and social justice in an educational system where family background continues to be the primary determinant of educational success. It has resulted in universal access to high-quality, full-day preschool programs for all 3- and 4- year old children in the Abbott districts, a key ingredient in reducing the achievement gap.

It has resulted in significant achievement gains at the fourth grade level, although consistent with national trends, it has not yet had similar effects at the middle and high school levels.

Abbott has eliminated the funding gap between our richest districts and our poorest urban districts. It was not focused on other poor districts with at-risk students, however, and they clearly need a level of funding and educational programs comparable to the Abbott districts.

Whether the Funding Reform Act accomplishes that is not before the courts now, but needs to be a high priority.

One thing is clear, though: Leveling down the funding of the Abbott districts is not the way to meet the needs of other students.

Doyne’s recommendations rightly preserve one of the cornerstones of the Abbott mandates, the opportunity for poor urban districts to seek supplemental funding to meet the profound educational and social needs of their disadvantaged students.

The problem is that he recommends this opportunity be continued “for at least three years,” and that may be interpreted as an invitation for the state to eliminate it after three years, especially if the financial crisis lingers until then.

The fact that children in the Abbott districts need such special programs was not lost on the New Jersey Supreme Court in its previous Abbott decisions, as its legal and moral foundation was simple: Equality of opportunity is absolutely essential for a meritocracy, where achievement trumps family origins in determining adult success.

This democratic ethos has evolved from Thomas Jefferson to Horace Mann to John Dewey to the goals of No Child Left Behind.

It is central to the American dream of mobility through schooling, too often out of reach to our poorest children.

Abbott, through a calibrated combination of parity funding, supplemental funding and universal preschool, has moved New Jersey closer to this ideal.

Unfortunately, the Funding Reform Act, despite its stated intention to provide equitable funding for all children under a “money follows the child” rubric, falls short on a number of counts.

First, state funding for at-risk and limited-English proficient students is allocated to school districts as part of an undifferentiated pot of state aid dollars with no statutory or regulatory systems to ensure they are actually used for these students.

Based on what we know about the politics of school funding, it is not unreasonable to predict that, in some districts, these funds will not be utilized for their intended purposes, but may instead be used for programs that tend to advantage the already advantaged, such as honors and AP courses to which at-risk children have historically had little access.

Long-term commitments

Second, arguing that in the short-term the Abbott districts will be held “harmless” because of adjustment aid and stimulus spending ignores the importance of legally enforceable long-term commitments to at-risk children.

In short order, adjustment and stimulus funds are almost certain to disappear and Abbott children will face a future that will look more like the past.

It is beyond dispute that New Jersey’s at-risk students, wherever they live, are entitled to the sort of funding and programs made possible by Abbott for children in poor urban districts. A funding law can accomplish this, without leveling down over time the hard-won and necessary gains achieved by decades of Abbott litigation.

The New Jersey Supreme Court deserves respect and admiration for what it has enabled the state to accomplish. It has made a huge investment in a crucially important state program. It should not yield to the temptation to cash out now because economic times are hard.

Instead, the court should affirm the historical legacy of Abbott by requiring the state to come up with a better funding system.

_{Alan R. Sadovnik is Professor of Education, Sociology and Public Affairs at Rutgers University-Newark, where he co-directs its Institute on Education Law and Policy.}

_{Send comments about this story to grad@northjersey.com.}