Turning Back the Clock on New Jersey's Children

One Person's Take on the School Funding: Corzine is running the state for the rich. Should we be surprised? The bill turns the clock on Abbott v. Burke, a landmark case in school funding for the poor, not just in New Jersey, but across the nation. This change in funding will send reverberations across the nation. Below is an article that was in my inbox that sums up the bill pretty well. The vote should come today.

The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee today (January 3rd) approved Gov. Jon Corzine's plan to change the way the state distributes $7.8 billion in aid to schools, moving the bill a step closer to final passage before the end of the lame duck session of the Legislature in a few days.

The vote came after Attorney General Anne Milgram endorsed the constitutionality of the governor's plan, giving it a boost in the face of critics who descended on Trenton in an effort to slow its sprint through the state Legislature.

With only two meeting days left until the current legislative session expires, Corzine released a letter from Milgram that states his new school funding formula "is consistent with the thorough and efficient clauses" of New Jersey's state Constitution.

Specifically, Milgram said the new funding formula, which boosts overall state aid by $532 million, sets appropriate standards for students and then includes enough funding "to provide the opportunity for all public school students, regardless of their disadvantages, to achieve those standards."Her opinion was included in a Jan. 2 letter to Corzine's chief counsel, Kenneth H. Zimmerman, that Corzine released this morning.

The letter stands in marked contrast to an opinion offered by retired Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein, a member of the court that issued a series of rulings in the long-running Abbott v. Burke lawsuit over public school finding. Those rulings required billions of dollars in special state aid for 31 needy communities deemed unable to support their schools with local tax revenues. Stein said the proposed funding formula would "turn back the clock on three decades of school funding" and could be one of the Legislature's costliest votes ever. "A vote in favor of the bill is, in reality, an invitation to a series of lawsuits that will embroil the state and the advocates for for the groups that oppose the bill in contentious litigation that will last for many years," she wrote in a Jan. 2 letter to lawmakers.

Opponents of the proposal, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healy, visited the Statehouse, where they continued to lobby today for amendments that would boost state aid to their communities."We're approaching the 12th hour now," Booker said. "If this works through this is going to have an adverse impact on the schools and urban taxpayers." Critics from Paterson also lobbied lawmakers, passing out cookies commemorating a mock bake sale they said Paterson would need to conduct to make up the $40 million in state support the new formula will cost that district. The Assembly budget committee is also considering the bill with full approval by both chambers of the Legislature scheduled for today, the final day of the legislative session.