Funding Alert

One year after the New Jersey Department of Education released the flawed report on the cost of education that led to a storm of criticism and slowed efforts to rush a new school funding formula through the State legislature, a new round of debate is opening up. This time it may be a "lame duck" legislature considering proposals and a new set of "cost studies"—though not from the NJDOE.

In the next few weeks, the Education Law Center, the Committee of Advocates for Newark’s Children, and the Our Children/Our Schools Campaign are slated to release a series of four cost studies that they have commissioned which will focus attention on critical issues related to educational equity and adequacy.

The new studies will include:

A review of NJ’s special education delivery system and recommendations for the development of a funding formula to support special education that, at minimum, complies with state and federal law (Margaret McLaughlin and Tammy Kolbe, University Maryland);

Plus separate analyses of the costs of:

High-quality K-12 general education (Michele Deegan, Muhlenberg College, Leanna Stiefel, Amy Ellen Schwartz, and Collin Chellman, New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy);

Preschool education (Clive Belfield, Queens College, CUNY, and Heather Schwartz, Teachers College, Columbia University); and

At-risk programs and services in high poverty districts (Clive Belfield, Queens College, CUNY)

These new studies are designed, in part, to address acknowledged gaps and flaws in the State’s previous efforts to provide a solid foundation of reliable information as a basis for developing a new funding formula. Last Spring, the NJDOE’s own experts identified numerous omissions and errors in the report on the cost of education. Despite claims that they would address the study’s problems, to date, the NJDOE has issued no new information.

Nor has the NJDOE issued proposals, or even partial plans, for the larger funding formula itself. It is not clear if the silence is due to secrecy or if the NJDOE is simply incapable of taking on a task of this size and complexity. The recent outside evaluation of the Department raised serious doubts about the Department’s capacity to fulfill its growing responsibilities.

Recently, Governor Corzine expressed his intent to have a school funding formula passed by the end of 2007. This would mean pushing it through a "lame duck" session after the November elections. The session would run from approximately November 7 to December 31, with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukah all intervening. On the Assembly and Senate Education Committees—the committees most likely to consider a new funding law—eight out of 15 members will be lame ducks themselves, either retiring, losing a primary, or relinquishing their seats to run for another office. Unless the plan is to simply push through a formula without deliberation, analysis, or public consideration, the prospects for passage of a credible statewide school funding formula by the end of the year appear very slim.

Advocates, school finance experts, and the media are voicing serious concern about what might emerge if the process of developing a formula is rushed. Instead they are calling for a thorough and deliberate consideration of any proposals. As a recent editorial in the Home News Tribune said,

"The issue is so complex and the state has got it wrong so often — and is, in the eyes of many, so far from being able even to collect the data necessary to determine what works and what doesn't — that many advocates fear the Governor simply will seek to push an unworkable solution through a lame duck Legislature."

"Politics often have gotten in the way of sensible and equitable school-funding formulas, so it's reasonable for the Governor to want to avoid the usual political turf wars. But in order to do that the right way, he needs first to get the public on board with a formula that makes sense to all of them, both the elderly taxpayers and the many parents with school-aged children. He can't do that without an exhaustive public debate."

In a related development, Education Law Center is back in court seeking access to relevant information still being kept under wraps. Arguments are now scheduled for October 24 in ELC’s lawsuit seeking the release of a NJDOE memo from 2003 that details three alternative school funding formulas.

If we are to avoid a replay of the past, there must be a broad public demand for immediate access to all prospective funding proposals and other work now being performed at the NJDOE; full deliberation on the implications of the four soon-to-be-released cost studies, and a careful, transparent process established to engage stakeholders in the consideration and analysis of new a funding law.

As OC/OS has repeated countless times, it is more important to "get it right than to get it fast." The education of all of our children and the future of our state is at stake.