Wealthier schools join forces for more funding

Posted by The Star-Ledger February 20, 2007 2:57PM

Two lobbying organizations that represent hundreds of school districts left out of the state Supreme Court's Abbott v. Burke court cases on public school funding announced today they have joined forces to press for a bigger share of New Jersey's state aid.

"We will have power that we have not had," said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, an organization that represents 110 of the state's wealthier communities.

Strickland's group grew by about 40 districts, with the announcement that a second lobbying group, the Association of Middle Income Districts, is disbanding and becoming part of the Garden State Coalition.

"The Garden State districts have long been seen as leaders in this debate," said Bruce Quinn, president of the Middle Income District's group, and superintendent of the Matawan-Aberdeen School District. "The new Garden State Coalition, now backed by the inclusion of middle and lower wealth districts, will have an even stronger voice to advocate the needed changes."

Lawmakers last year failed in a six-month effort to devise a new formula for distributing the $7 billion in state aid New Jersey sends to schools each year.

Lawmakers have frozen funding to most school districts for the past six years, costing local school boards outside of the 31 communities covered by the Abbott rulings more than $2 billion in aid they would otherwise have been scheduled to receive.

In the budget Gov. Jon Corzine is scheduled to present Thursday, lawmakers say they expect to see suburban school aid raised for the first time since 2001, but say they still plan to press for a new formula.

"We can't have a two-tiered system of funding public school education - one set by the Supreme Court and the other set by whatever's left over," said Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), one of three lawmakers who attended today's merger announcement in the Statehouse. "What we have now in New Jersey is a dysfunctional system."

Contributed by Dunstan McNichol