'Abbott' is taboo in Corzine's draft of school aid plan

Word nearly wiped from legislation

Saturday, December 22, 2007

BY JOHN MOONEY

Star-Ledger Staff

One of the more interesting details in the draft legislation of Gov. Jon Corzine's new school funding plan is a word that's all but disappeared: "Abbott."

Corzine has been open about his hopes to get away from New Jersey's focus on funding schools under the mandates of the state Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke rulings, which help steer more than half of the state's aid to 31 so-called Abbott districts.

That intention was made clear in black and white this week when a 106-page draft of the legislation was released. In nearly 100 instances where the existing school funding law uses the word "Abbott," the bill removes it or replaces it with other language to describe the districts.

"I heard they apparently missed one," said Paul Tractenberg, the Rutgers Law School professor who helped launch the Abbott case against the state.

"On page 70, sect. 14, paragraph A," he said. "That's what we've been reduced to."

A cornerstone of the administration's $7.8 billion funding proposal has been its plan to extend the funding now being provided to Abbott districts to other districts that also have large pockets of low-income and immigrant students.

In doing so, Corzine said he wants to eliminate the special designation of the Abbott districts altogether. Such a change will require the approval of the state Supreme Court, and the administration plans to seek that approval once the legislation is passed.

"The governor has made very clear that new formula is about the funding following the children and not being allocated by Zip code," said Lilo Stainton, Corzine's spokeswoman. "It is one of the basic premises here."

Advocates for the districts warn the state shouldn't move so fast with the language changes, before the inevitable court battle.

They maintain the Abbott districts would suffer under the new proposal, with more than 20 of them facing the minimum 2 percent aid increases next year and likely no increases at all in the years after that.

"They can remove a label, but they can't take away the constitutional protections of the Abbott children," said David Sciarra, director of the Education Law Center that has led the Abbott litigation.

The label change is most noticeable is the section dealing with school construction. Under the court's mandates, the Abbotts are currently entitled to 100 percent state funding for new and renovated schools, although the program has stalled from lack of funds.

That 100 percent entitlement hasn't changed in the new bill, but the names have. In more than 30 edits, the Abbott districts are instead dubbed "SDA districts," referring to the School Development Authority, the new agency overseeing the construction program.

Meanwhile, leaders of the powerful New Jersey Education Association yesterday announced that they would oppose the bill as currently drafted, saying it would not provide the direct help to schools that they had initially thought.

A key sticking point is a new provision in the bill that could force more than 100 districts that spend more per pupil than the new formula deems necessary to use the new state aid to reduce property taxes.

"This is a school funding formula, and it should be used to fund schools," said NJEA President Joyce Powell, who plans to testify against the bill at a hastily-scheduled Assembly hearing next Thursday.

Corzine and legislative leaders have said they want to pass the bill by the end of the current session on Jan. 7.