school funding – Hank Kalet

The choice seems clear

Admittedly, there is no good solution to the litigation now in front of the state Supreme Court. The Christie administration’s gutting of the state school funding law has and will continue to do damage to schools — not just in the state’s cities, but in suburban districts, as well. Reinstating the money, however, will blow a hole in the state budget — a problem that will have an impact on numerous other programs.

But there is a way out of this, I think, and it starts with a reinstatement of the so-called millionaires’ tax, which had provided $1 billion in revenue while it was in place and would go a long way to plugging the $1.6 billion education-funding shortfall.

It is a point that the court — in the person of Associate Justice Barry Albin — alluded to in its questioning (from NJ Spotlight):

In one twist, he asked about the so-called millionaire’s tax at the center of political dispute for two years, not calling it that but making it clear in describing the surcharge that Christie let expire, costing the state $1 billion in revenues.

The state said it had no money to provide districts, he said, but this was not the first time it had been in a fiscal hole.

The response from Peter Verniero, the former associate justice representing the Christie administration, was silence, as Robert Braun points out:

Verniero would not answer Albin. He simply would not talk about the millionaire’s tax — in or out of court. He just ran away from the issue.

“I know you are still in a fiscal crisis,” Albin said, “but when the promise was made [to fully fund the formula in 2009], there was a $1 billion funding source and now we’re $1 billion less.”

Verniero wouldn’t comment, but Gov. Chris Christie has made it clear that he believes the surcharge on income is bad for the state. The governor believes it drives high-earners from the state and suppresses job growth, but his critics — rightly, I think — ask how the governor can ask nearly everyone else in the state to sacrifice, especially those at the lowest end of the income spectrum, while handing a gift to the handful of people affected bu the surcharge.

Consider this blog post from New Jersey Policy Perspective, the liberal think tank that has reviewed the budget, which sets the governor’s slashing of the state earned income tax credit (a 25 percent cut) alongside a $41 million tax break handed to Campbell Soup.

This cutback in tax credits for working families comes even as the Christie administration and the Legislature are expanding tax credits for corporations in New Jersey.

For example, last month the state awarded Campbell Soup a $41 million tax credit to renovate its corporate headquarters, move 49 jobs from Cherry Hill to Camden and hire 50 new employees at the Camden site over the next 10 years. The credit includes $6.3 million for new furniture. Campbell qualifies for the subsidy, officially called the Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit, which is aimed at redeveloping urban centers, because its offices are within a mile of the Walter Rand Transportation Center.

The total cost to the state to fund that tax credit to Campbell Soup is nearly as much as the $45 million in savings gained by reducing the state EITC.

Raymond J. Castro, who wrote the post, asks a question that the court should ask — and may be asking, if Albin’s questioning of Verniero can be applied to the entire court:

So who needs this help the most, one of the largest corporation in America or working New Jerseyans who can barely make ends meet to support their children?

The governor, who talks a lot about making the state more affordable for the middle class, has made it obvious what he believes the answer is.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

After picking schools’ pockets, governor gives districts some cheese

I’m wondering whether the governor has strained himself patting himself on the back for all the good work he’s doing on education aid and reform.

Here is the press release he issued today to announce local school aid figures:

Further demonstrating his firm commitment to strengthening and reforming education in New Jersey, Governor Christie is providing an additional $250 million for New Jersey schools in his fiscal year 2012 budget. Aid figures released today by the Department of Education show an increase for every school district in the state. In addition, public charter schools will receive $4.6 million in additional funds – an increase of over 50 percent — another indication of the Christie Administration’s commitment to expanding high-quality public charter schools for New Jersey children.

“Last year, our state faced severe fiscal challenges, and we had to make some very difficult choices. Reductions to education funding were among the most agonizing of those choices,” Governor Chris Christie said. “Because of the foundation we set in last year’s budget, and our responsible management of the state’s finances, New Jersey is on firmer footing and we are able to put more funding into classrooms throughout New Jersey.”

That’s a lot praise for himself for a paltry increase of $250 million. Yes, paltry — he cut more than $1.1 billion last year and the $250 million he’s increasing aid this year does not even come close to fully funding the state’s education formula.

But that’s not a surprise. The governor’s education priorities have never included the public schools, which he views as broken.

“(M)ore money on its own will not fix our education system. We must continue to vigorously pursue education reforms to fundamentally change public education, focused on achieving results for children, rewarding excellence in the classroom and demanding accountability throughout the system.”

His reforms? A “challenge (to) the status quo” that “move(s) toward a system that demands accountability, rewards highly effective teachers, utilizes performance measures and ensures each and every child receives the quality education they deserve.”

In English: testing, charters, vouchers and the breaking of the teachers union. The goal has nothing to do with improving the state’s schools and everything to do with longstanding conservative ideology. And that is jut not good for the students of the state.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Private funding for public schools

Let’s be serious here. This bill attempts to skirt the church-state wall by creating privately funded scholarships, but — and this is key — the state is offering tax credits to encourage it.

The program, which for the first time would provide widespread taxpayer funding for religious and private education, would not be directly funded by the state. Instead, businesses would contribute to the scholarship fund in exchange for tax credits. By its fifth year, the program could cost the state up to $800 million in lost tax revenue.

This seems a state endorsement of the plan and just another example of how the state is moving to dismantle public education. Rather than addressing the real issues — funding disparity and a segregated state — we are privatizing the funding of more and more of our educational system.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Hurdles to participation

This move by the Mt. Olive school district, if approved tonight, presages a dangerous trend in public education.

Mount Olive High School students who play sports and some who join clubs will be forced to pay a participation fee next year to make up for budget shortfalls.

The Board of Education must come up with $91,000 in revenue from the fees, and preliminarily announced the fees will be $125 for a student to play an unlimited number of sports and $25 to join nonacademic, nonservice clubs, school board President Mark Werner said at a recent board meeting.

Thus, a student who plays multiple sports and is in multiple clubs would pay $150, the same as a student who plays one sport and is in one club.

“That’s what we’re looking at right now,” Werner said. “However we slice it, we have to come up with $91,000. That’s our mission — $91,000.”

On first blush, this might seem an innovative way to plug a hole in the school district’s budget. And it is difficult to criticize the district for exploring this avenue.

But seeking fees from students raises questions about access to programs, about the openness of participation in public school activities and whether such fees might pose, if not an impediment, then a disincentive to joining clubs or playing sports.

Granted, these activities are extras, but they have become a central part of the high school experience — and they are an important part of the college applicaton process. Colleges not only seek students with solid grades and high test scores, but those who participate in the school culture — in clubs and sports — because they want kids who are well rounded and interested in more than just books.

The fees, therefore, become not only a financial hurdle to high school participation but potentially create a drag on the ability of low- or moderate-income students to get into college.

Court backs Corzine on school funding

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.