Funding Alert

All children deserve an excellent education, and the State must not be allowed to simply walk away from its legal and moral obligations to students in New Jersey’s high poverty urban school districts.

Those two messages are at the heart of the "Our Children, Our Schools" (OC/OS) campaign, launched by a statewide group of education advocates. The group was formed to make sure that any new school funding formula preserves and sustains the equity commitments embodied in the New Jersey Supreme Court’s landmark Abbott decisions, and extends them to all children with special needs. This includes children from low-income households and neighborhoods, children with disabilities, and English language learners – no matter where they live.

"New Jersey must maintain its place as a leader in the national movement for educational equity for poor and minority students," said campaign member Janice Harris Jackson of the New Jersey NAACP.

"In just a few short years, we’ve made unprecedented progress in improving education for urban school children through Abbott funding. Over 40,000 children now attend high quality preschool programs, elementary test score gaps have been cut in half, and NJ has the nation’s highest graduation rates for African American and Hispanic students. Much more urgently needs to be done, but these are not small accomplishments." said Lesley Hirsch of the Education Law Center. "Any new school funding law must strengthen, not diminish, this effort, while giving disadvantaged students across the state the same educational opportunities."

Numerous national education and school finance experts testified before a Joint Legislative Committee that has been looking into reforming the way New Jersey funds its public schools. Jerome Harris of the New Jersey Black Issues Convention noted that what came through "loud and clear" from the experts is that "it will take more money – not less – to ensure that all children are educated to achieve our State’s rigorous and comprehensive curriculum standards."

Just how much additional funding is needed to enable all students to reach State standards is a critical issue, and serious problems have already surfaced over an effort in 2003 by the NJ Department of Education to determine how much that costs. Education Law Center and others are questioning the validity of the DOE 2003 cost study, citing the failure to follow accepted professional standards and the absence of any written public report by DOE almost four years after the work was performed.

"The Legislative Committee hearings showed that other states built their funding formulas on real, credible estimates of what it costs to deliver school programs that meet state standards. We want to be sure that’s what is done here in New Jersey," said Evangeline Gomez, Esq., Board President of the Paterson Education Fund.

Without more details, it’s also impossible to know if the new formula will increase state support for public education. At 40%, the state’s share of the total school budget is well below the national average of 54%. (NJ ranks 43rd out of 50 states in this category.) This is why local property taxes are high in many communities. "Educational equity for all kids means that the state must contribute more of the overall share of public education costs," said Tyrone Echols of New Jersey ACORN.

"New Jerseyans are not willing to compromise education quality in their pursuit of lower property taxes." Said Cecilia Zalkind, Executive Director of the Association for Children of New Jersey. She cited the results of a poll her organization recently commissioned from Monmouth University. 75% support the current practice of providing higher levels of state aid to school districts with high child poverty rates, and 64% say they would oppose any property-tax relief measures that reduce overall funding for schools.

The groups coming together as "Our Children Our Schools" to express their position on school funding are: the Abbott Leadership Institute, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Education Law Center, Hispanic Directors’ Association of New Jersey, New Jersey Black Issues Convention, New Jersey National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Maplewood NAACP, Orange NACCP, the Statewide Education Organizing Committee (SEOC) and the Paterson Education Fund..