Schools

Winners and Losers for School Aid

Complicated formula hits some NJ cities hard while suburban schools see gains.

The first details are out in Gov. Chris Christie’s trumpeted increase in state aid for New Jersey public schools next year, showing a much more complicated picture that will mean big increases for some schools but sharp cuts for others.

Released late yesterday by Christie’s office, the state aid figures for each district under the governor’s $32.1 billion budget are, at first look, short on clear patterns. Some of the state’s larger urban districts will be hit the hardest in actual dollars, with Camden for instance losing $5.5 million (2 percent) and East Orange $2.9 million (1.7 percent).

But it’s not universal: Newark loses a relatively small $600,000 out of a nearly $1 billion budget, and Jersey City is actually slated to get a single dollar more.

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Other districts seeing significant cuts include such places as Winslow ($896,000), Hopatcong ($764,000) and Monmouth Regional ($482,000). In all, 95 districts will see some reductions, from 13 percent down to miniscule dips.

But that is just the losers, a small minority in a budget where four out of five districts will see at least some increases. They are going more to the suburbs, but they include a wide range as well, including blue-collar places like Bayonne ($2.8 million increase) and the top dollar winner, Freehold Regional ($3.2 million).

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“We see this as a good news budget for an overwhelming number of districts,” said acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf.

Much of it comes back to the complexities of the state’s aid formula under the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), one that Christie has long lambasted as too generous for so-called failing districts in cities like Newark and Camden. He has all but ignored it the last two years, making steep across-the-board cuts two years ago and then increases last year, much of them by order of the court in the latest Abbott v. Burke decision.

But somewhat ironically, Christie is closely following at least SFRA’s core principles in this budget, albeit with some significant and sure to be controversial changes that Cerf said would be phased in over five years.

The SFRA formula enacted by former Gov. Jon Corzine and approved by the state Supreme Court bases state aid on a complicated computation that determines a model range for spending and allots a certain amount of money per student, depending on their needs and the local district’s ability to pay.

Those different weights for different needs are critical to the math, as is how the students are counted in the first place. Cerf is making changes in both those methods that would appear to provide less help than previously to districts with higher concentrations of poor or disadvantaged students.

For instance, low-income students who formerly would get as much as 57 percent more in per pupil aid would see that reduced to 46 percent under Cerf’s plan. Some estimated that alone could cost $1,000 less per child in aid.

Cerf is also proposing changing how students are counted, moving away from a single annual count on Oct. 15 to a rolling average student attendance rate. Again, that could hurt urban districts where attendance can be much more problematic.

Cerf doesn’t deny the changes will have significant impact in some districts, saying he hopes they will put more focus on how the money is spent rather than how much is spent.

“I’m trying to disentangle us from the idea that money buys us achievement gains,” he said in an interview.

He outlined much of his philosophy and some of the math in a 83-page document to the legislature called the Education Funding Report, a report required under SFRA to look at possible adjustments in the formula over time.

It is heavy on Cerf’s view on needed reforms in schools, including teacher effectiveness and school “turnaround” strategies. With charts and graphs, he repeatedly makes the argument that additional spending has not led to increased achievement results.

At one point, he even raises the questions if all at-risk students as measured by eligibility for federal free-lunch dollars must necessarily be presumed to be educationally disadvantaged, or whether there is a better way to measure it. (He doesn’t answer the question, instead only recommending a task force to study it.)

Cerf also made significant changes in how the state distributes what is called “adjustment aid,” a $570 million account this year to more than 150 districts that was meant to cushion any cuts.

Under the fiscal 2013 budget, that will come down to $555 million, with more reductions to come. For districts getting adjustment aid and spending more than the SFRA says is adequate, the amount would be steadily reduced to half the current total over five years, Cerf said.

Continue reading this story on NJ Spotlight.

NJ Spotlight is an online news service providing insight and information on issues critical to New Jersey.


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