More than an academic question

They met in a basement classroom in Newark each Wednesday night, a disparate group of Rutgers graduate students, some hoping to one day be school principals and others simply looking for an interesting way to earn three credits.

But with an experienced Trenton lobbyist leading the class, they soon became a laboratory on one of the most controversial issues gripping the state -- how to finance public schools.

In the end, no single solution to New Jersey's property tax woes emerged, but the conversations could be as passionate and complex as the ones playing out in the Statehouse.

"Just like with the state, everybody was picking their sides," said Wilkin Santana, a Paterson schoolteacher taking the course toward his master's degree. "It got pretty heated sometimes."

Issues of public policy can often become vociferous when they involve children, poverty and taxpayer dollars, and the classroom debates were no exception. Some students argued more money needed to be directed toward the problems of underperforming schools; others said schools needed to do better with what they had.

Eldon Lewis, a Rutgers graduate student, said he picked the class out of a hat for his master's degree in public administration and left with new empathy for lawmakers trying to come up with a funding formula for the state.

"This stuff is complicated," he said, "and I was never very good at numbers to start with."

Still, he came away with a fine appreciation for how the debate affects real people, and he made no excuses for lawmakers who fail to get the system reformed.

"The more they lollygag, the more the people and children will suffer," Lewis said.

The course on school finance has been a staple of Rutgers' public affairs and administration program, as well as a requirement for those seeking certification to be a school principal. As such, the class of 19 students was full of teachers and educators vying for the next rung on the career ladder.

But when David Nash signed up last year to teach the class, he wanted to spice it up. A longtime lobbyist and lawyer for the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, Nash said he lives these issues every day in his job -- so why not bring them to class?

"I was starting from scratch, but I wanted to do something very practical and hands-on," he said. "And I wanted it related to the big debates that are going on right now."

His syllabus seemed torn right from the daily newspaper headlines. State lawmakers for the last year -- if not the last decade -- have grappled with how to best pay for public schools and take some of the load off local property taxpayers.

So for required reading, Nash assigned transcripts from legislative hearings on school funding last summer, an analysis of New Jersey's Comprehensive Education Improvement and Financing Act, and summaries of the voluminous Abbott vs. Burke school equity rulings. Those state Supreme Court rulings have been key in recent years, mandating the state increase spending in poor, urban districts by billions of dollars.

Nash brought in some of the top players in the debate to lecture, including David Sciarra, the director of the Education Law Center that brought the Abbott suits on behalf of poor children.

Student Gwenyth Manfre, who is seeking her principal's certificate, felt herself wearing different hats. She is both a special-education teacher in Madison and a property taxpayer in Flanders.

"I'm a little conflicted," she said. "I was getting a grasp of the Abbott districts and their needs but probably shifted a little in seeing how money doesn't solve all their problems."

For their last assignment, the class analyzed the state's current quandary of setting a dollar amount for what it should cost to educate each child, a pivotal piece in the formula being drafted by state education officials.

The state has yet to propose a number that hasn't raised howls from school districts and others, and now it promises an improved product by year's end. In the meantime, Nash's class did its own math and analyzed how other states have completed the task.

Kristen Hands looked at Wisconsin's student performance against New Jersey's and wasn't impressed with either.

"If educational equity for all students is the goal, they have both missed the mark," she said.

Manfre looked at student performance across the states on national achievement tests, many showing just a third of students meeting proficiency standards.

"Not sure we should feel proud as any state," she said.

Most agreed the Corzine administration and Legislature will have their work cut out for them in the coming months. But with this the last class of the semester, these small players in the debate were going their different ways.

Lewis said he's not sure what he'll do with his master's degree, maybe work in education or a nonprofit organization. But after sending in his final paper Wednesday afternoon, he suggested one lesson lawmakers might take from his experience: the importance of getting things done on time.

"I handed in the paper at 4, right at the deadline," he said.

John Mooney may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com, or (973) 392-1548.