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GSCS Quick Fact: Next Board of Trustees Meeting July 11, 2007 at 9:30 at the East Brunswick Board of Education. Please RSVP gscs2000@gmail.com with your attendance plans. ( New Trustee districts should attend this meeting if possible.)
Extraordinary Special Education Aid Report shows how much local districts are entitled to according to Public Law and how much less than entitlement the state budget will actually be providing to districts according to the Governor’s proposed budget for FY08. Copy-paste the link below into your browser to see how much more your district must raise in local property taxes to cover this underfunded entitlement. Statewide that total is about $171M.
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/budget/exordspedaidFY08legdist_rpt.pdf
Law proposed to create new School Construction Authority to oversee school construction programs:
S27996 Establishes the New Jersey Schools Development Authority and revises the school construction program established under the "Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act."
S2796 Senators Doria/Turner (primary sponsors); Identical bill in the Assembly, A4336, Assemblymen Stanley/Caraballo (primary sponsors); Assemblywoman Pou/Assemblyman Van Drew (primary sponsors)
On the GSCS homepage today at www.gscschools.org :
6-13-07 GSCS update; relevant news articles
The State Budget for FY08 is nearing final agreement stage in the legislature - at the end of May Treasurer Bradley Abelow recommended $78M be added to the budget for schools, in his testimony he stipulated that the additional $78M be directed to Abbott districts in specific.... Speculation varies on Senator Joe Doria assuming a state leadership role at Gov Corzine's request....GSCS' work to develop white paper proposal on a new school funding formula nearing final stages....DOE hosted its 2nd stakeholders group disucussion last Friday - transportation and property taxes were listed on agenda, but the focus was limited to transportation issues, GSCS was there...news articles on state budget, school funding, state education leadership, and high school graduation rates also attached.
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6-12-07 News Articles of note...
Corzine reported to want Doria in a top education spot Tuesday, June 12, 2007
State Democratic leaders have reached a tentative budget accord but are still thrashing out the final details, State Treasurer Bradley Abelow said this afternoon.
Action in Trenton N.J. must OK schools out-of-state for disabled Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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6-10-07 NY Times Sunday ' Abbott School Districts Among the Top Spenders’
(FOR ARTICLE, SEE HERE/BELOW)
EDUCATION, Sunday June 10 2007... "NEW JERSEY’S Abbott districts, the urban school systems that sued the state 26 years ago to gain equal footing with affluent districts, are now among the highest-spending school districts in the country, according to newly released data from the United States Census Bureau. The districts spent more money per student than most rich districts in New Jersey in 2004-5, the census data show. Among the 30 kindergarten-to-12th-grade districts of 500 or more students that spent the most, 22 were Abbotts, including the top three — Asbury Park, Hoboken and Newark. There are 31 Abbott districts..."
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6-7-07 Republicans unveil budget proposal FY08 - $300M to help fund schools
(Excerpt from the submitted document) Rationale for the requested change: "...Assembly Republican Leader Alex De Croce and Assembly Republican Budget Officer Joe Malone have proposed more than $1.5 billion of spending cuts to the proposed budget, predominantly for the purpose of reducing property taxes and providing increased funding for schools...This resolution would finally make education in non-Abbott urban districts and all suburban and rural school districts a priority in the State budget. These districts have been short-changed for far too long and their needs have even been placed below “Christmas tree items” and pork in the past five budgets."
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2007-2008 GSCS Board of Trustees
The attached slate of GSCS officers and Board of Trustee districts was adopted unanimously at the GSCS Annual Meeting. Congratulations to our new GSCS officers and trustee districts. Thanks and sincere appreciation to our outgoing officers and trustee districts who voluntarily gave of their time and efforts that served GSCS so well.
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5-23-07 GSCS Annual Meeting Program Agenda
Thanks to the 120 who attended the GSCS 16th Annual Breakfast Meeting this morning; David Rebovich our keynote speaker, and to our panelists, Senators Barbara Buono and Tom Kean, and Asemblyman David Wolfe.
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5-21-07 In Connecticut '2 School Aid Plans Have a Similar Theme'
May 20, 2007 New York Times TAXES 2 School Aid Plans Have a Similar Theme
"...Legislative leaders say the total increase in state money would be used to narrow achievement gaps between the students in poor and well-off districts, yet cities would not see the same proportion of new money that they had seen in the past. However, since the overall increase is substantially higher than in past years, most city officials are not loudly complaining...
...That is because the political itch being scratched this year is not solely about achievement gaps, but relieving pressure on property taxes in the suburbs....
...The state’s education aid program began in the 1980s in response to a lawsuit over unequal school financing, and its formula has sent more money to poor districts than rich over the years. But Donald E. Williams Jr., the president pro tempore of the Senate, said the wealthy districts now deserve to get some relief..."
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EMAILNET 5-18-07 School Funding Formula Needed Now
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5-16-07 Education Week 'Frustration Builds in NJ Funding Debate'
'Districts increase push for revised aid formula, amid continuing delays...' "...Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, hoped to have a new funding formula in place for the 2007-08 school year, but that has been delayed until 2008-09 while policymakers and advocates debate the figures and factors that should shape the aid framework. In the meantime, frustration is mounting in the districts..... “We need a school funding formula and we need it, like, yesterday,” said Lynne Strickland, the executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools..."
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NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY June 10, 2007
Education
Abbott School Districts Among the Top Spenders
NEW JERSEY’S Abbott districts, the urban school systems that sued the state 26 years ago to gain equal footing with affluent districts, are now among the highest-spending school districts in the country, according to newly released data from the United States Census Bureau.
The districts spent more money per student than most rich districts in New Jersey in 2004-5, the census data show. Among the 30 kindergarten-to-12th-grade districts of 500 or more students that spent the most, 22 were Abbotts, including the top three — Asbury Park, Hoboken and Newark. There are 31 Abbott districts.
Asbury Park spent $23,572 per student, according to the census, while the highest-ranking non-Abbott district, Wildwood City, spent $19,912. The state average was $13,613, and the national average was $8,315.
The census survey, the most recent national data available, demonstrates anew the high costs of public education in the region: Among the kindergarten-to-12th-grade districts with at least 500 students nationwide, 89 of the 100 top-spending districts per student are in the region, including 67 in the New York City suburbs and 14 in New Jersey.
But the survey also shows how New Jersey, after years of litigation, is approaching an ideal: Enough money in poor schools to provide not only the same basic educational program as the highest-achieving districts, but also programs to redress the special problems of poverty.
“There’s no question that New Jersey, because of Abbott, has gone farther than any other state in ensuring equitable resources for children in high poverty and high minority districts,” said David G. Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, which filed the lawsuit known as Abbott v. Burke in 1981 on behalf of urban children. “If need is driving the decisions, and it should be, then the higher-poverty districts should be spending the most money.”
Abbott schools received $3.5 billion in state aid in the 10 years after a 1996 court ruling, and whether the Abbotts have been spending the money well has become an issue as the dollars have mounted. Audits of four Abbott districts released in February showed numerous spending excesses, and more audits will be released this summer.
A legislative committee is considering a new formula for state education aid that could substantially alter the court-imposed method.
“It is clear that the Abbott funding system hasn’t worked — we are spending some of the largest sums of money in the country in those schools, but we are not seeing the full effect of it,” said State Representative Bill Baroni, a Republican from Hamilton in Mercer County. “In some districts we have seen real academic success, and in others we haven’t.”
Gov. Jon S. Corzine and the Legislature have also indicated a desire to slow spending growth in Abbott districts. This year, in legislation sending districts millions of new dollars in state education aid, the Abbott districts received only small increases.
But it is clear that New Jersey, under pressure after a series of rulings from the State Supreme Court dating back two decades, has moved a long way toward ameliorating the vast differences in wealth between cities and suburbs that result in unequal education spending in most states. The court ruled in 1990 that the state must give the Abbotts enough aid that they can spend the same per student on basic education programs as the richest districts. The districts largely achieved that parity by 1997, Mr. Sciarra said.
The court also ruled that the districts must receive additional money for remediating the needs of poor students, with programs like early childhood schooling. Those funds, which the state began to allocate in 2000, have taken the Abbott districts from parity with wealthy ones to their position now as the highest-spending districts.
“The state has, since 1990, shifted from a regressive (lower spending in higher poverty districts) to a flat system in the later 1990s, to a progressive one by 2005,” Bruce D. Baker, an associate professor at the University of Kansas who has reviewed the census data, wrote in an e-mail message.
Courts in many states, including New York and Connecticut, have ordered legislatures to spend more in poor districts, but the New Jersey court has held that the standard for judging the amount spent is a very high one.
“The Abbott decision is unique in the country in that the decision calls for parity with the wealthiest districts in the state,” said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, which represents about 150 districts. “The court also said they are entitled to particularized-needs cost over and above that level, and the result is that some Abbott districts are spending $2,500 more per student than wealthy suburban districts.”
The census figures, which come from a yearly survey of local government finances, differ from state figures released in February. They include some spending that state calculations of per-pupil spending may not, like revenue from the federal government and transportation costs. The numbers do not include capital spending.
Census officials say the numbers are comparable across state lines.
