If the Fort Lee educational system did not have enough issues, one of our most vicious issues is the poor reimbursements from the State of NJ. As a result of the Abbott Decision, Fort Lee is one of many suburban districts that literally get “ripped off” in terms of educational funding. The average expenditure per Fort Lee Student per year is $16,232, while in Newark, it is $22,000 and in Asbury Park the absurd figure of $26,782. For that price, it would be cheaper to ship students from these communities to Connecticut where they might receive a decent education! And we are forced to contribute our tax dollars to make this happen!
Why! What is Abbott?!
On May 24, 2011, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a lawsuit by the City of Newark that the State of NJ had been derelict in its responsibility to supply adequate funds to Newark for the education of their students.
I recommend to all individuals to google Wikipedia: “Abbott Districts” to understand this decision. Briefly, Abbott districts are school districts in New Jersey covered by a series of New Jersey Supreme Court rulings, begun in 1985, that found that the education provided to school children in poor communities was inadequate and unconstitutional and mandated that state funding for these districts be equal to that spent in the wealthiest districts in the state. In 1990, it clarified special factors:
- Must be those with the lowest socio-economic status, thus assigned to the lowest categories on the New Jersey Department of Education‘s District Factor Groups (DFG) scale;
- “Evidence of substantive failure of thorough and efficient education;” including “failure to achieve what the DOE considers passing levels of performance on the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA);”
- Have a large percentage of disadvantaged students who need “an education beyond the norm;”
- Existence of an “excessive tax [for] municipal services” in the locality where the district is located.
Using these factors, the Court in Abbott II identified 28 districts as Abbott districts (Latest count: 31). These districts are primarily poor, urban districts, including Newark, Paterson, Camden, Passaic and East Orange. However, it also includes Hoboken, which clearly no longer should fit the description of Abbott, but our state officials have failed to review this situation, and Hoboken is clearly not going to protest!
Fort Lee is not an Abbott District, so our tax dollars go to these districts so they can upgrade their schools, while our children suffer with reduced State funding.
Senator Michael J. Doherty is co-sponsoring a bill with Senator Gerald Cardinale and supported by Fort Lee Candidates Keith Jensen and John Aslanian. This bill called the “Fair School Funding Plan” would basically overturn the Abbott decision in NJ by amending the NJ State constitution. While its chances of success may be not be guaranteed, and while it faces difficult obstacles, it needs to be publicized in towns like Fort Lee and supported.
The Abbott Decision is a failure. Urban districts fail to provide quality education, in spite of gross amounts of money being poured into the system. The money goes to the wrong places, Some examples: Newark has 400 administrators making 6 figure salaries! Only 39% of Newark’s 8th graders are proficient in reading.
Governor Christie said it best upon the 2011 decision: “I don’t know when the Supreme Court’s going to finally abandon the idea that if we just continue to throw more money at this problem that we’re going to fix it.”
Amen.