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Education Law Center Director: Better Effort Needed to Fund Education in NJ 6-15-15 “A” for effort. The Education Law Center released the fourth edition of its report “Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card.” Additionally in a state-by-state analysis of K-12 school funding, New Jersey got an “A” for effort in investing in high poverty areas and for both funding and fairly distributing school aid, second only to Massachusetts. However, the state’s underfunded its formula for subsidizing all public schools by more than $1 billion over the past few years. The Education Law Center’s Executive Director David Sciarra spoke with NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams about how, despite a high ranking, the state still needs to do better. Sciarra says that compared to other states, New Jersey’s K-12 education funding does very well and that New Jersey is considered a fair state. “We look behind the raw spending numbers to look at two measures. One, is there a sufficient level of funding for all the kids in this state to support their education? Secondly and most importantly, does the state provide more resources where student need is highest? These are our high poverty schools — so schools that serve high concentrations of low income children, English language learners,” he said. There’s a whole new range of districts, not just Abbott, according to Sciarra, and there are currently over 100 districts where the poverty rate is over 40 or 50 percent, making it bigger than the old Abbott problem, and also making it a state issue. “The state has done a good job over the years to build an equity and fairness into its formula — that’s the good news. The bad news is that the under-funding of the formula that we put into place in 2008 that was designed to keep this going over the last three years is causing serious problems,” he said. New Jersey has had consistently high rankings in education funding due to investments made in high poverty districts between 1998 and 2008 that helped boost New Jersey’s ranking. Sciarra continues, “A lot of it had to do with the Abbott rulings over the years, directing more money into the highest poverty districts. The Legislature also at that time — and I’m taking about the 2000s — put money into other high poverty districts. So we have had a history prodded by the courts where governors and legislatures up until 2009/2010 actually

did a pretty good job of providing fair funding at an adequate level, but also driving that extra state aid to the poorest communities in the state.” However, despite increased education funding for poorer districts in New Jersey, there still remains high levels of dysfunction in struggling school districts — but are those schools really getting enough funding? “What’s been happening in the last couple of years is the erosion of fairness and it’s going to show up in our future reports. It doesn’t show up in this one yet [the report is based on data from 2012] but as the data comes in, we expect the fairness to decline and you can see it now in districts across the state,” he said. “Not just in Newark and Paterson where they’re laying off 300 staff this year, but you see it in districts like Linden and Camden County, places like Bayonne. These are districts with high concentrations of poor kids, growing enrollments, lots of English language learners and the funding just hasn’t been put into the formula for them.” He says the state Legislature and governor need, and can, do better despite the state budget being in trouble. “We hear about this all the time, but frankly we think that the Legislature can do better and that the governor can do better. The problem is Gov. Christie has been unwilling to propose any new funding and he’s vetoed any attempt to put new funding in,” Sciarra said. “We’ve called on the Legislature this year to put in about $300 million in new funding allocated to the districts that need it the most and that would get us back on track. We have to make an effort. We realize we can’t cover that billion dollars all in one year, but we’ve got to get the state back on track.” Sciarra introduced a proposal in conjunction with a D.C.-based leadership conference on civil and human and rights. He says education funding is a human right guaranteed by the New Jersey constitution. “Education is a civil right. It’s guaranteed in the New Jersey Constitution. Why fair funding matters to kids is it really determines whether in the classrooms across the state if there’s going to be enough qualified teachers, support staff, extra programs for kids that are behind. It’s not just about dollars, it’s about resources in classrooms and schools,” he said. http://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/education-law-center-director-better-effort-needed-to-fund-education-in-nj/