Funding Alert

Concerns over Governor Jon Corzine’s school funding proposal involve more than money. One under-reported aspect of the Governor’s plan is his declared intention to seek Court approval for ending the "Abbott designation" given to 31 high-poverty, special needs districts. This designation not only brings needed funds to Abbott districts, it also puts special responsibilities on the State for ensuring educational quality and requires those districts to provide specific programs to students and families. Ending the Abbott designation would end both the dedicated funding for these programs and the mandate to provide them, leaving their continuation to the discretion and budget politics of each district.

Programs that would no longer be legally required if the Abbott designation is eliminated include:

While some of these programs might survive in some form, many would disappear without adequate funding and districts would no longer be required to provide them. Parent/community advocates would lose major leverage in their efforts to secure "supplemental services" based on "demonstrated need." In fact, districts would no longer be required by statute to assess these needs and no longer have the right to apply for "supplemental funding" to meet them as provided for under Abbott.

In place of "the Abbott remedies," the state would rely on its QSAC monitoring system, a new process introduced this year to evaluate district performance. QSAC involves a series of self-administered "district performance reviews" that may lead to "corrective action" plans. However, QSAC is untested as a school improvement process and does not specifically monitor the programs and services required by Abbott. Moreover, the recent management audit by KPMG of the NJ Department of Education found that the Department lacked the capacity to carry out its responsibilities under the QSAC legislation. (See Review and Implications of KPMG Audit of New Jersey Department of Education)

Governor Jon Corzine and Education Commissioner Lucille Davy have failed to address the full implications of eliminating the Abbott designation. While it is clear the funding proposal is designed to eliminate the parity and supplemental formulas in Abbott that assure funding equity for the state’s poorest districts (See Governor’s Plan Would End Abbott) the plan would also threaten the program implementation and school improvement processes that have led to academic and other gains in Abbott districts and that keep the pressure on the State to sustain them. This is one of many reasons that rushing the plan through the current lame duck session of the New Jersey legislature would be a major mistake.