Time to recast way Jersey funds poorest schools

Home News Tribune Online 03/24/08

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The new school-funding formula the Legislature passed into law in the waning hours of its lame-duck session in January is not perfect: The intricacies of school funding together with the peculiarities of New Jersey's culture and geography make perfection elusive; the state's unwillingness to stop funding schools primarily through the property tax makes it impossible.

There is ample evidence, however, that the new law, designed by the Corzine administration over many months, is better and more equitable than what it replaced. The question the Corzine administration put to the state Supreme Court last week is whether it is good enough to stand constitutional muster.

The answer must be yes.

This page has been a long and vocal supporter of the Supreme Court decisions that created and sustained the Abbott districts — a group of specially funded 30 poor, urban districts — over many years. At the point of those rulings, the differences between schools in the state's decimated urban centers and its far more affluent suburbs could not be ignored. It was equally clear urban governments could not turn to local property taxpayers for the money needed to reverse the trends; to do so would have failed miserably, even as it would have driven the cities further into debt and despair.

The state money poured into those districts over more than 20 years has not produced the educational results many hoped it would. There are success stories, although they are often overshadowed by the Abbott districts' failings.

But the money has had a material effect on the cities themselves. Although New Jersey's cities are still struggling, they are far better off than they were when the Abbott districts were created. Look at New Brunswick, home now to several luxury developments, a bustling downtown, a lively cultural scene, an increasingly interconnected university and a growing business presence. There are similar things happening in Jersey City, Newark and Hoboken. Perth Amboy also has made great strides.

This is not to discount the great pockets of poverty that still exist in all those places, nor to brush over the work still to be done in their school systems. But the changes are deep and profound enough, and the needs elsewhere great enough, to suggest that the time for the Supreme Court's heavy hammer has passed.

The brief the Corzine administration prepared for the court shows that per-pupil spending in the Abbott districts continues to exceed those in even the state's richest districts; property taxes, meanwhile, are below average. Last week, a former legislator noted that many of the priciest residential developments in Jersey City, Newark and New Brunswick are not charged property taxes; they've been given tax incentives that allow residents in them to make small payments directly to the city governments, and the city governments pocket those payments even as the state pours money into city schools.

It's clear the state has passed the point at which ever greater investment from the state is needed; now New Jersey officials need to target their efforts toward using the money more effectively and more precisely, even as they redirect efforts to ensure that each city and its residents are paying what they are able to support the local schools. It also is time to turn attention to all the needy students who live outside the Abbott districts. For all these reasons, the time has come for the Supreme Court to release the state from its overreaching economic commitment to the Abbotts, and free it to move to the next phase of working toward educational equity and excellence across the state.