Middletown Superintendent Thanks O’Scanlon for Restoration of School Funding

Dr. William George and Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon

Dr. William George III, Ed. D., the Middletown Township Superintendent of Schools, today thanked Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon for his successful efforts in getting all of the $1,179,200 in state funding to Middletown schools that had been cut from the budget proposed by the Democrat majority in the legislature last spring.

George sent O’Scanlon the following email earlier today: Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Governor Christie Takes Action to Root Out Waste and Abuse to Make Every Education Dollar Count

Trenton, NJ – Today, Governor Chris Christie took another important step to move forward with common sense reforms of the state’s system of education funding by convening a task force of experts to root out and eliminate well-documented instances of abuse and manipulation of the school funding formula due to fraud in the Free and Reduced Price School Lunch Program. The Education Funding Task Force, created by Executive Order, will act on the Governor’s commitment to make every education dollar count and ensure funding is not being misdirected, but actually getting to those economically disadvantaged children who need it most.

“Providing a great education that prepares every single child in our state for college or a career has been a top priority of my Administration. For this reason, I’ve proposed a budget that increases state support for education to its highest level ever and an agenda of bold reforms to turn around failing schools,” said Governor Christie. “But how we spend education dollars in our schools is just as important as how we provide them. Funding must follow the child more closely and get to the students who need it most. This Task Force will help to root out and eliminate well-documented fraud and abuse in the Free and Reduced Price School Lunch Program, which has led to the possible misdirection of tens of millions of dollars of education funding.”

The School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) is designed to distribute greater amounts of school aid to districts serving greater numbers of students who are economically at-risk and districts with less property wealth. Currently, participation in the federal Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program serves as the proxy for classifying and counting economically at-risk students. Recent studies and news reports clearly identify high levels of fraudulent enrollment in the program – undercutting the state’s ability to fairly and appropriately determine aid levels for schools. A 2011 report by the State Auditor found that as many as 37 percent of the students in the program are enrolled fraudulently.

Recognizing the importance of maintaining integrity and reliability in this program is crucial to ensuring a fair, accurate and equitable distribution of funding to schools. The Education Funding Task Force is charged with examining the state’s school funding formula and developing recommendations concerning those areas of the formula that may be susceptible to fraud or subject to outside manipulation. This includes participation in the Federal Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program as a proxy for at-risk status and the municipal tax abatement program. 

The Task Force will specifically consider the following issues: 

·         Economically effective measures of student poverty;

·         Educationally sound measures of defining at-risk students;

·         Appropriate adjustments to SFRA to account for municipal property ratable bases that may be artificially deflated as a result of municipal property tax abatements;

·         Identifying all aspects of the SFRA that may be susceptible to fraud, or subject to undue outside manipulation and recommendations to address these abuses; and

·         All other such other matters as may be referred to the Task Force by the Governor.

The Education Funding Task Force will be composed of 7 members from inside and outside of government, each with expertise in education funding, policy, administration, governance and fiscal management. All members of the Task Force will serve without compensation.

The Task Force was first called for in the Department of Education’s Education Funding Report released last month, in a recommendation aimed at exploring the use of a new measure for at-risk students in place of participation in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program. The funding report outlined a series of common sense measures to improve the school funding formula and to help close the state’s persistent achievement gap by making education funding more closely follow the child.

A copy of Executive Order 89 can be found as an attachment to this release.

• Tweet

Governor Christie Announces Highest Level of State K-12 District Aid in New Jersey History

Incorporates Common Sense Measures to Make Every Education Dollar Count

Trenton, NJ – Governor Chris Christie today released aid figures for New Jersey school districts based on the Fiscal Year 2013 Budget proposal which is the largest appropriation of state education dollars in New Jersey history. This includes $7.8 billion in K-12 formula aid, an increase of $135 million over last year and part of $213 million in additional state funding for education over Fiscal Year 2012. The Department of Education also made public the “Education Funding Report,” which outlines a series of common sense measures to make every dollar count and to help close the state’s persistent achievement gap – including turning around failing schools and ensuring that every child has an effective teacher in the classroom. 

“Since taking office, one of my greatest priorities has been working to ensure that every child in the state receives a high quality education that will prepare them for the demands of the 21st century,” said Governor Christie. “In addition to increasing overall spending on education to the highest levels in state history, we can and will go further to implement common sense ways that will make every education dollar count. If we truly want to ensure that all students, regardless of zip code, graduate from high school ready for college and career, the money needs to follow the child.”

The Governor’s budget not only increases education aid for the second year in a row, but also pairs common sense changes to the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) with bold education reforms to make sure resources are used in a way that will close the achievement gap and better serve those children who need them most. These changes were based on the findings of the “Education Funding Report” prepared by Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf. The findings of the “Education Funding Report” can be found at http://www.nj.gov/education/stateaid/1213/report.pdf

Making several common sense modifications to the SFRA will finally make it possible to truly fund districts based on the number and needs of students, while at the same time laying out a schedule that adds additional funds in each future year and will fully fund the SFRA over the next five years. This will increase stability and predictability for districts and fund districts based both on the number of students served and the needs of those students.

Common Sense Measures to Make Every Dollar Count:

• Bringing New Jersey In Line With Other States and Funding Districts Based on How Many Students are Actually Attending School. Encourage school attendance by basing the enrollment count on actual attendance throughout the year rather than the current law which bases enrollment on a single day (October 15).Basing funding on average daily attendance will incentivize districts to focus on and improve attendance rates leading to more time in the classroom for children.Statewide, among large high schools, a mere one percentage point increase in attendance would result in nearly 4.2 million hours of additional instructional time per year.

Only 10 states in the nation, including New Jersey, use a single-day count to measure student enrollment. 40 others states use more accurate and meaningful measures of student enrollment, including average daily attendance measures or multiple days over the course of the school year.

• Making Adjustment AidTruly Adjustment Aid. Adjustment aid should actually be a tool to help districts that are below adequacy, instead of what it currently is – political currency that provides additional funds to districts regardless of their current enrollment and spending levels. This is a symbol of the old Trenton, when funding decisions were made as political giveaways regardless of the implications. The plan calls for a return to common sense – for districts that are spending above the level of their adequacy budgets, phase out, over five years, adjustment aid by 50% of the amount they are spending over their adequacy budgets.

• Rooting Out Fraud and Abuse. The Christie Administration will convene a task force to recommend a new measure for “at-risk” students in place of participation in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program, which has shown to be inaccurate and subject to fraud.There will be no change for this year.

• Returning to Originally Proposed School Funding Reform Levels. New Jersey is one of the most generous state funders of “at-risk” and Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students in the country.Under the proposal, even when returning to the originally proposed reform levels, New Jersey will still provide funding for these students at some of the highest levels in the country. These levels were recommended after a three year process including multiple panels of experts before they were artificially inflated.

New Jersey Funding as Compared to Other States

90% of Districts Receiving Additional Aid On A Per Pupil Basis

New Jersey currently ranks 3rd in the country in school expenditures per student, spending more than 60 percent above the national average. Nearly 60 percent of state aid goes to the 31 former Abbott districts, where spending has tripled since 1972. Former Abbott districts now spend $3,200 per pupil more than the state average (excluding the former Abbotts) and $3,100 per pupil more than the state’s wealthiest districts.

With a $135 million increase in K-12 formula aid, an increase of 1.8%, and the proposed modifications to the SFRA funding formula, 90% of districts will receive additional state aid on a per pupil basis this year. On average, state aid is increasing 2.1% or $121 per pupil across the state. Because these measures follow the principle that districts should be funded on the actual number of students they serve, 35 of the 97 districts that will receive less state aid will do so because of an enrollment decrease rather than a decrease in per-pupil aid. 

As the following demonstrates, Abbotts receive almost three times the state average in state aid per pupil. Overall, the former Abbott districts are receiving 0.55% less state aid than last year, yet still remain funded at a significantly higher level than non-Abbott districts and the statewide school district average. The overwhelming amount of total per pupil education spending in the former Abbott districts has, and will continue in Fiscal Year 2013, to come from direct state support. Even with formula revisions, state aid will comprise 3 of every 4 dollars spent on education per pupil in the former Abbott districts.

The past 40 years have demonstrated that just spending more money alone will not close the achievement gap, and that it matters not only “how much” money is spent but “how well” it is spent. Despite funding levels that consistently rate among the highest in the nation on a per pupil basis, New Jersey continues to have one of the largest achievement gaps in the country. Funding alone will not meet New Jersey’s obligation to give a great education to every child. Changing the way money is spent is by far the most important means of actually changing the behavior of schools and the school systems.

New Jersey has the second highest achievement gap in 8th grade reading according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam, and the sixth highest achievement gap in 8th grade math. Since 2005, the gaps for economically disadvantaged, African American, and Hispanic students have widened in Language arts literacy on the NJ ASK.

“We have closed the spending gap between Abbotts and non-Abbotts in New Jersey since 1972, but our disadvantaged children are still performing at significantly lower levels than their peers. Closing that gap was the explicit goal of the courts and legislature over the past 40 years, but money alone has not gotten us there. While money certainly matters, there is no evidence that money alone will close the achievement gap,” said Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf. “Over the last 40 years, we’ve talked a lot about equalizing funding, but we need to change the conversation to focus on whether students are learning the same everywhere, rather than simply whether we are spending the same everywhere.”

New Jersey’s current system funds all districts in the same way, regardless of their performance or the reforms they have in place to address persistent achievement problems. In addition to these significant and overdue changes to the funding formula, the “Education Funding Report” proposes a $50 million Innovation Fund to encourage and reward districts to both improve performance and to implement reforms targeted to specific achievement deficiencies. The fund would reward districts that show high growth and strong performance in student achievement, and fund reforms at the local level that are improving performance for students. The Department of Education would monitor the implementation and impact of these reforms, ultimately identifying and bringing the most successful to scale statewide. 

In order to have a meaningful and lasting influence on student learning, we need to set new policy priorities, change laws and regulations, alter classroom practices and district contracts, and start pushing a slate of bold reforms that finally move us away from the belief that the funding formula alone will close the achievement gap. Among many others, that includes: 

• Develop policies that enable districts to recruit, prepare, evaluate, compensate, develop, retain and recognize outstanding educators, and eliminate legal and contractual restrictions that impede schools from assuring a highly effective teacher in every classroom;
• Provide educators with the tools they need to be successful by setting high standards for what students should know and be able to do, developing model curriculum to support educators as they teach those standards, and providing real time feedback through formative assessments so teachers can modify their work and differentiate instruction in real time;
• Provide rich data reports to identify how well schools are meeting their mission of improving student outcomes, to identify specific areas for improvement, and to trigger differentiated interventions at the State level such as mandated curriculum and human capital practices; and
• Intervene in schools that do not create an environment conducive to high-quality teaching and learning by providing support through Regional Achievement Centers, requiring targeted turnaround strategies, and aggressively using existing authority to close or replace schools with new management and teachers if they do not improve within two academic cycles.

State aid figures for New Jersey’s school districts can be found at: http://www.state.nj.us/education/stateaid/1213/

• Tweet

State Education Funding: The Numbers

The State of New Jersey will send $7.7 billion dollars to school districts in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, an increase of $839 million.

A county by county breakdown of the funding ( I refuse to call it aid, as aid implies that it is not our money to start with) can be found here.

Funding amounts for Monmouth County school districts can be funding here.

• Tweet

Governor Chris Christie Announces Education Allocation Plan Which Increases School Funding for Every District in New Jersey

Trenton, NJ – Furthering Governor Christie’s commitment to providing the resources and reform to improve education for every New Jersey child, the Christie Administration announced today the allocation plan for $850 million in new aid authorized for New Jersey schools in the Fiscal Year 2012 Budget. This commitment to education includes the Governor’s initial $250 million increase for all school districts, as well as an additional $450 million for the Abbott districts, and an additional $150 million for non-Abbott districts. With this new funding, total state aid to education will be higher in Fiscal Year 2012 than it was when Governor Christie took office.

“This year, New Jersey increased state aid to school districts by $850 million over last year, restoring every dollar of the cuts we were forced to make last year and increasing aid by an additional $30 million. We are keeping faith with our commitment to New Jersey’s children and families, spending more money per pupil on New Jersey’s students than almost any other state in the country,” said Governor Christie. “Now is the time to complement the dollars spent with real education reform to bring a focus on student learning, accountability and results.”

Today’s funding includes an additional $450 million for the 31 Abbott districts, which fully funds them under the School Funding Reform Act formula, and an additional $150 million for non-Abbott districts, doubling the increase that the Governor had already approved in February as part of his Fiscal Year 2012 Budget. This increase in education aid will provide important property tax relief to New Jerseyans as the state increases its support for local schools.

“Being able to provide additional education funding to districts this year further affirms this Administration’s commitment to ensuring each and every child in New Jersey receives a quality education,” said Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf. “It is now time to focus on aggressive education reform, concentrating on improving standards, assessments, and curriculum; strengthening the use of performance and accountability data; improving educator effectiveness; and investing in innovative models of educational delivery.”

Governor Christie is committed to making 2011 the year of education reform. He has put forward a Reform Agenda that brings necessary and long overdue changes to the public education system that focuses on accountability, makes teacher effectiveness and student achievement the driving forces behind public policies and practices, empowers parents with greater school choice, and expands high quality public charter schools in New Jersey to ensure that every child in our state has access to a quality education and achieves the results they deserve.

The county and school district allocation lists can be viewed at: http://www.state.nj.us/education/stateaid/1112/

• Tweet

School Funding Is Thorough, But Certainly Not Efficient

By Andrew Bruck

Forty years of school finance litigation – and we still can’t agree what it means to provide a “thorough and efficient” system of public education.  The latest Abbott v. Burke ruling didn’t distinguish between the two parts of New Jersey’s most famous constitutional phrase, but it seems unlikely we’ll ever get to thoroughness without efficiency.  In the real world if not in the courts, there’s no separating the two, and it’s time for the legislature to give both their due. 

The system for funding and operating our public schools is hopelessly wasteful: a fractured, Byzantine system that allows good money to be wasted on redundant programs and unnecessary bureaucracies.  The problem lies with New Jersey’s overabundance of local government.  With 566 municipalities and 616 school districts, we simply have too many administrative entities trying to do the same thing.  New Jersey taxpayers elect mayors to govern towns with fewer than 25 residents and pay superintendants to oversee districts with fewer than 50 students. 

The waste is remarkable.  Consider Mendham, home of Gov. Chris Christie.  It’s a single community, but the town is split into two local governments:  Mendham Borough and Mendham Township.  Each municipality has its own K-8 school district, each with fewer than 1,000 enrolled students and each with a superintendant making more than $150,000 per year.  The two municipalities are also part of the West Morris Regional High School District, which includes Chester Township, Chester Borough, and Washington Township, and which pays its own superintendant $192,000 per year to watch over the five towns’ high school kids. 

It’s an elaborate – and expensive – mess.  It’s no surprise that, at a spring 2009 town hall meeting, Christie called the divide between the two Mendhams “crazy.”

There’s a better way.  Representatives from the Mendhams, the Chesters, and Washington Township are discussing several cost-saving measures, including a consolidation of the various school districts and, more boldly, a consolidation of the five municipalities.  A recent study commissioned by Courage to Connect NJ, the only statewide non-partisan, non-profit organization devoted to consolidation and shared services, found that multi-town municipal consolidations could lower property taxes by up to 40 percent in some cases. 

The real question is whether Christie and the State Legislature are committed to fixing the problem.  The state’s fiscal 2010 budget eliminated virtually all funding to study consolidating municipalities and other local districts.  Now that Trenton must come up with an additional $500 million to comply with Abbott, it’s going to be even harder to convince politicians that consolidation is worthy of additional funding.  But a small increase in state funding for consolidation could save tremendous amounts of money in the future – and make it easier for New Jersey to provide the “thorough and efficient” system of education that the state constitution requires. 

A good first step would be to reform the way that New Jersey funds consolidation studies.  Across the state, there are scores of local officials and grassroots community groups that want to know whether their towns could save money and lower taxes by merging local governments or school districts with neighboring communities.  But these studies require towns to shell out between $30,000 and $70,000 for private outside consultants to perform relevant financial analyses. State law obligates Trenton to help towns defray the cost of these studies, but it has long since given up funding these projects.  Cash-strapped towns wind up abandoning study proposals because they can’t afford the up-front cost.

The solution is simple:  Trenton should take over the study process.  Remove private “consultants” and assign two or three non-partisan experts in municipal finance to examine the various proposed consolidations – which they could do for far less than $30,000 to $70,000 per study.  At long last, weary taxpayers can finally figure out if consolidation is the answer.

Making it easier to consolidate towns and schools won’t magically solve our budget problems.  But a short-term investment now will help communities find new ways to fund local services – including public education – without bankrupting taxpayers.  More money for New Jersey’s schools won’t do any good unless we create a system that is both thorough and efficient.  Here’s hoping Trenton makes the best of this opportunity.

Andrew Bruck is a former law clerk to Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.  He is the co-author of the Courage to Connect NJ Guidebook, a citizen’s guide to municipal consolidation in New Jersey, and “Overruled by Home Rule,” a legal and historical overview of consolidation.

• Tweet

Use It Or Lose It

Christie Administration Urges School Districts To Spend $200 Million In Stimulus Funds

There is $200 million in unspent federal stimulus earmarked for New Jersey Schools that will have to be returned to the federal government unless spent by August, according to a report at NJ Spotlight.

• Tweet