State one of only six to score well in each of the four categories
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N.J. Gov. Chris Christie glares at Marie Corfield, an art teacher from Robert Hunter Elementary School in Raritan Twp., as she speaks with the governor about school cuts at a town hall meeting in September.TRENTON — New Jersey distributes a greater share of its education funding to school districts with low-income students enrolled, an effort for which the state received high marks on a national analysis of school funding systems released today by the Education Law Center.
But the data evaluated for the center’s first annual funding formula report card do not reflect the $820 million cut Gov. Chris Christie made to education spending this spring, raising questions of whether the cuts will erode the state’s funding fairness in the future.
"This is a report that should make New Jersey taxpayers, legislators, parents and citizens proud," said Education Law Center Executive Director David Sciarra. "We are one of a few states in the nation that provide sufficient funding for all of our students by allocating additional resources for students with the greatest need."
Acting Commissioner of Education Rochelle Hendricks had no comment on the report card findings.
New Jersey is one of only six states to score well in each of the four categories evaluated by the report card’s authors. Those categories include state spending per pupil, state spending adjusted for poverty concentration, state spending as a ratio of per-capita gross domestic product, and the proportion of school-age children attending public schools.
Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont and Wyoming also received high scores on the report card, but for other states, the findings are grim. Roughly 80 percent of states got grades of "C" or lower on the extent to which they fund education "progressively" by routing more money to poorer districts.
While Sciarra described New Jersey as a national school funding leader, he also highlighted the state’s regional excellence.
"New York is a state with a high spending level that poorly allocates resources," Sciarra said. "In Pennsylvania, the funding levels are generally low, leaving both rural and urban school districts underfunded."
New Jersey Education Association spokesman Steve Wollmer applauded the state’s report card marks, but said Christie’s education spending cuts could have adverse effects on the schools’ ratings as early as next year.
"There’s a direct link between our commitment to fair school funding and our leading the nation in closing the achievement gap," Wollmer said. "It would be tragic if Gov. Christie’s cuts reversed that progress."
The Education Law Center is waiting for action from the state Supreme Court on a challenge it filed in June contesting the legality of Christie’s cuts to state education spending, arguing they did not follow the state’s funding formula. The Department of Education should have released its own report on the state’s school funding formula last month, but Christie advised the department to keep the report private, citing concerns that its findings could hurt the state in the legal challenge brought by the Education Law Center.
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