Abbott v. Burke is officially history. The long-running battle over how to best fund the 30 so-called Abbott districts — low-income communities dubbed “special needs” districts by the court — has been resolved, with the state Supreme Court backing Gov. Jon Corzine’s school funding revisions.
The new formula, which went into effect last year, ties aid to students, rather than school districts, meaning that state school funding is being more broadly distributed than in the past.
The court, in its 5-0 ruling, found that the Corzine funding formula met the court’s long-time goal “to ensure that the constitutional guarantee of a thorough and efficient system of public education becomes a reality for those students who live in municipalities where there are concentrations of poverty and crime” and that the state provide all students “the opportunity for san unhindered start in life — to become a productive and contributing citizen to our society.”
In the syllabus accompanying the decision, the court said
The political branches are entitled to take reasoned steps to address the pressing social, economic, and educational challenges confronting the state, without being locked in a constitutional straightjacket. A costing-out study such as that engaged in by the State is rife with policy choices that are legitimately in the legislature’s domain. In the record below, each value judgment attacked was demonstrated to have been made in good faith, and on the basis of available factual data informed by advice from experts whose testimony revealed that they had the interests of the pupils in mind. The Court sees no reason or basis for it to second-guess the extraordinarily complex education funding determinations that went into the formulation of the many moving parts to this funding formula. The Court recognizes, however, that it does not have the ability to see ahead and to know with certainty that SFRA will work as well as it is designed to work. Although there is no absolute guarantee that SFRA will achieve the intended results of its design, the Court concludes that SFRA deserves the chance to demonstrate in practice that, as designed, it satisfies the requirements of the State Constitution.
The decision appears a sound one, though I still believe that the state is underfunding schools and that, rather than shifting money from the Abbott districts to other districts, the state should have significantly increased the amount it provides, leaving the urban districts whole while adding money for the rest of the state’s schools.
This, of course, would not be an easy thing to accomplish in a state as fiscally broken as New Jersey, especially during an economic meltdown. But it would have been in the longterm best interests of the state’s schools and could have helped ease some of the local property tax burdens being carried by the state’s residents.
Hank Kalet 