On January 23, many Our Children/Our Schools members and parents from Paterson, Newark, the NJ Institute for Social Justice, the Statewide Education Organizing Committee, the Paterson Education Fund, the NAACP, and Building Our Children’s Future braved the cold and made the trek down to the NJ State Supreme Court in Trenton to hear oral arguments on funding the stalled school construction projects in Abbott districts.

This was the third time that Abbott children, represented by the Education Law Center, have asked the court to intervene since 2005, when the school construction program essentially ran out of funding.

The Supreme Court ruling in this case, issued on February 19, gave Governor Corzine more time to fund the stalled projects. In a last minute tactic on the eve of the hearing, the Governor, through the Attorney General, had submitted a letter to the Court indicating that he would prepare a bill to be submitted to the Legislature requesting $2.5 billion in school construction funding. According to the letter, the Governor expected legislation to be enacted by June 30, 2008. Although the Attorney General’s office told the Court the legislation would be introduced in February, as of March 1 no bill had been posted.

In its ruling, the Court declined to set a deadline for funding, adopting instead a wait-and-see approach towards the Corzine administration and the Legislature and their willingness to approve funding through legislation. For more information about the ruling, see "Court Gives Governor & Legislature Another Chance To Fund School Construction."

In a letter to the Education Law Center on behalf of the Attorney General, Robert Gilson, Assistant Attorney General, said: "We continue to believe that there is neither a need for nor a constitutional basis for a Court-imposed deadline for additional school construction funding."

But Irene Sterling, President of the Paterson Education Fund, had a different perspective: "Our children are waiting. They are waiting in schools that don’t heat properly. They are waiting in schools with one bathroom for 200 children. We need the Supreme Court’s help to deliver the promise of Abbott."

In 1997, it appeared that the Supreme Court agreed with Sterling, stating that, "no one can expect disadvantaged children to achieve in school buildings that are overcrowded, outdated, dilapidated, and often unsafe."

For more information about school construction, contact Lindy Wilson at lindy789@optonline.net.

Prepared: March 11, 2008