Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
Article Index
Students 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.
NJDOE regulations also direct high needs districts to "begin planning for implementation" of more focused programs to improve mathematics and language arts performance and to reduce class sizes. In addition, the recent Abbott XX ruling made clear that the Abbott supplemental programs - tutoring, parent involvement, drop-out prevention and others - have not been eliminated and that "the resources provided through SFRA should enable" these districts "to select and deliver" the Abbott programs "that are appropriate and necessary" for their students. And high needs districts will have to implement tougher high school graduation course requirements, and new high school exit exams, under a plan adopted by the State Board of Education in June.
The Legislature's decision to jettison SFRA means that students in underperforming schools in high needs districts - the vast majority of whom are low-income and Black and Latino - will have fewer resources than the formula prescribes as necessary to meet state academic standards. The aid cuts deprive these students of the funding their schools need to improve performance, provide needed supplemental programs, and meet new State high school course and graduation mandates.
Danielle Farrie, ELC Research Director, contributed to this report.
don't believe me? check my the facts yourself at this website or simple look at the NJ department of education website:
http://www.edlawcenter.org/ELCPublic/AbbottvBurke/AbbottProfile.htm
If it is the state of New Jersey's job to provide public education, and it is as far as our state constitution is concerned, then all of the state's children should be treated equally.