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Article IndexStudents in "high needs," majority/minority districts lose most
BY DAVID G. SCIARRA
EDUCATION LAW CENTER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ANALYSIS
The NJ Legislature's passage of the FY10 State budget in late June makes it official.
The State has abandoned funding public schools based on the levels of educational need set in the new school aid formula — the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) of 2008.
Once again, school funding has retreated to backroom horse-trading over the State budget, where aid levels are based on how much politicians want to spend in any given year, not on what the new formula prescribes for a "thorough and efficient" education.
The result: a budget cut of $303 million in basic SFRA school aid — called "equalization aid" — to 325 school districts. Legislators also cut aid to expand the effective Abbott preschool program to 6100 children in districts with poverty levels above 40%, and to an as yet undetermined number of low-income children in middle class and wealthy districts. The cut in SFRA preschool aid could top $50 million.
These cuts mean that SFRA had a shelf life of only one year — 2008-09. Full funding for "at risk" students and for preschool expansion were key "selling points" to secure legislative enactment of SFRA by one vote last year. Now both are gone. Even Governor Whitman's 1996 formula was used to fund schools for four years until it, too, was cast aside in 2002.
ELC has analyzed the impact of the $303 million cut in SFRA formula aid on students in districts designated as "high needs" by the NJ Department of Education. "High needs" districts have more than 40% low-income or "at-risk" students, and are performing below State standards on the 3rd, 8th and 11th grade assessments.
The analysis shows that 44 of these high needs districts lost $94.7 million, or almost one-third of the total $303 million cut statewide. These districts enroll 153,034 students, 76% Black and Latino and 58% at-risk. The per-pupil aid cut in the high needs districts is double that in other districts — $635 per pupil compared to $312 per pupil — largely due to the lower wealth and higher poverty rates.
Bottom line: under-performing, high poverty, and majority Black and Latino school districts are bearing the brunt of the Legislature's decision to ignore SFRA and cut mandated formula aid.
Table 1 and Figure 1 summarize the ELC analysis. Chart of the 44 high needs districts experiencing an aid cut, below.
Figure 1: 2009-10 State Aid Cuts by Category in High Needs Districts
High needs districts are under specific state and federal directives to improve programs and performance. 33 of the 44 high needs districts experiencing an SFRA aid cut have "schools in need of improvement," and 5 are "districts in need of improvement" under the No Child Left Behind Act. Schools and districts in this category are under a federal "turnaround" mandate.
Can you cite to where the "tremendous" gains in test scores were made? What districts had gains? What grades? How much? Don't bother because all you are going to find is a slight uptick in 3 and 4th grade language arts scores that happened a few years ago and have now more or less reverted to where they were before Abbott parity funding. Furthermore, when those kids were tested a few years later those gains had evaporated and they tested at the same low levels as before. Basically money for nothing.
You are confused about what is good for the kids and what is good for the adults in the educational system. Abbott was very good for the teacher's unions in those districts because they were able to obtain greater salaries and grow their membership, thereby increasing their local clout and control over the Board of Education. In turn they were able to negotiate more and more burdensome contracts with all kinds of insane tenure rules as well as lavish perks and benefits. This is where the money went, not to new buildings or air conditioners or books etc. The state wasted additional billions on its crooked School Construction office which squandered its funding and built very few schools.
Like you, I do want educated kids who can lead us in the future. However, Abbott did nothing to make this a reality. These urban districts are broken and the only remedy is parental control over the districts and a choice over where their children are educated. Anything less is bound to fail because the education cartel cannot be trusted to use the money it has been given wisely and for the benefit of children.
Time to suck it up and find out how the rest of the world lives.
P.S. You might find more sympathy if the results of all that money hadn't been NO CHANGE in educational progress.