School aid cuts argued in court
The state Supreme Court has the case of whether withholding aid was constitutional.
TRENTON - New Jersey's Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a new chapter in its decades-long dilemma over what the state must do to provide an adequate education for children in its poorest communities.
The justices are wrestling with whether it was unconstitutional for Gov. Christie and the Legislature to cut aid to schools by about $1 billion last year.
The Education Law Center, which works to represent the interest of children in low-income cities, argued that the cuts violated the state constitution's requirement to provide children a "thorough and efficient education." The center's executive director, David Sciarra, argued that next year, the state should again start using a formula introduced three years ago with the intent of funding schools equitably.
The formula, approved by the court in 2009, was fully funded in its first year but not in its second. For the current school year, it was set aside as the state cut subsidies to every school district.
The state would have needed an additional $1.8 billion for the current school year to fund the schools at the level called for under the formula, said Nancy Kaplen, a lawyer for the state.
"The money was just not there," she told the justices.
For more than three decades, the court has prodded the state through its rulings in cases known as Robinson v. Cahill and Abbott v. Burke to give more aid to 31 low-income districts in which test results lag far behind those in the state's suburbs. The issue has only become more complicated with time.
In the 1970s, when the litigation over funding equity began, schools in poor cities spent only half of what the state's wealthiest schools did on a per-pupil basis.
Now, Kaplen said, those schools spend an average of $2,200 more per student than the wealthiest districts. Asbury Park, she said, is spending almost $25,000 per student this year - about twice as much as one wealthy district, Somerset County's Montgomery Township.
"We can't keep up this level of spending that we can't afford," Kaplen said. "Everyone's got to make decisions."
Justice Barry Albin said that more needs to be spent in the cities than the suburbs. "The wealthiest districts don't have to worry about school violence," he said. "They may not need security guards."
Sciarra said that poor students are particularly hurt by this year's cuts.
"There have been substantial reductions in services for regular students, at-risk students, special-education students, English-language students," he said. "This cut puts us on the road to return to the deplorable state our schools were in that led to Robinson v. Cahill."
Justice Helen Hoens seemed skeptical of Sciarra's request, summarizing it as, "Whatever other departments in government would have to be closed, slashed, ended . . . this particular funding formula has to be funded, end of discussion."
Six justices heard the case. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, who was involved as attorney general with creating the state's school funding formula, recused himself.
