New Jersey Newsroom - New Jersey’s school-funding battle could use a dose of reality

3-26-11  By Josh McMahon was The Star-Ledger’s political editor and served on the newspaper’s editorial board. He is a frequent guest on New Jersey Network’s Reporters Roundtable.

COMMENTARY

Here we go again.

The school establishment, the courts, the governor, the legislature – and oh yes – the taxpayers are facing off one more time.

Many are anticipating a constitutional donnybrook – one that pits Chris Christie, a governor who doesn’t know how to back down, against a self-righteous Supreme Court.

It has all that’s needed for yet another New Jersey-based reality TV show – State Street Smackdown, maybe? Move over Snookie and the Situation.

Still, I don’t think we’ll ever see that show. I’ve got to think Christie and the court realize what’s at stake and aren’t about to jeopardize the public’s already low confidence in its government.

I’ve got to think they don’t want to put on a show – no matter how high the ratings might be.

Christie and the court will avoid confrontation. Reason will prevail. There are signs of that already.

Even Judge Peter Doyne’s decision on Tuesday – the one that said this year’s funding cuts have caused the state to fall short of its responsibility to provide a thorough and efficient education – nodded several times to the fiscal realities confronting the state and the court.

“The difficulty in addressing New Jersey’s fiscal crisis and its constitutionally mandated obligation to educate our children requires an exquisite balance not easily attained. … Progress has been made; how to maintain that progress in light of daunting fiscal realities, reposes with our highest Court and the other coordinate branches.

“Something need be done to equitably address these competing imperatives. That answer, though, is beyond the purview of this report.”

At another point he noted that “funding, in and of itself, can never be sufficient to ensure our students will perform as it is thought they must.”

Achieving that goal, he said, will require the “cooperation and dedication of administrators, teachers, support staff, and possibly most importantly, the family.”

And finally, he stated what’s becoming obvious to many. “... How money is spent is much more important than how much money is spent.”

He went on to note: “Despite spending levels that meet or exceed virtually every state in the country, and that saw a significant increase in spending levels from 2000 to 2008, our ‘at-risk’ children are now moving further from proficiency.”

For the past few years New Jersey’s Supreme Court appears to have been moving in the direction of common sense.  Let’s hope it continues down that path.

The bottom line is the state simply doesn’t have the money that the school funding formula requires.

Judge Doyne’s decision in many ways was a no-brainer. An $800 million reduction in state school aid had to impact the ability of schools to deliver that much talked about “thorough and efficient” system of education.

The more important question is whether the state had any choice?

It’s up to the Supreme Court to determine that. Once again it’s hard to imagine how the justices can conclude the state had a choice. Under normal economic conditions, a tax increase is an option but these are not normal times.

The reality is the state was caught in the backwash of the great recession. Tax revenues were not there to continue supporting a whole host of programs at previous levels. Education was one of them.

The lawmakers – not the justices – are entrusted with determining how the state’s revenues should be divvied up. It’s not within the court’s purview to usurp the legislature’s power.

And let’s remember it’s not like the schools were shortchanged any more than other budget lines. Education aid is listed at $10.3 billion in the current budget, that’s one third of the entire state spending.

Also let’s remember this is not 1976 when then Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Hughes closed the schools in a dispute over funding. I was there for that fight and it was a much different situation.

The legislature and Byrne administration – after years of prodding from the court – had devised a school funding formula but had no way to finance it. The court action was designed to force lawmakers to take a step they didn’t want to take – institute a state income tax.

That’s no longer the case. In the current school year the average spending per student is about $14,000 and when the costs of benefits are included that jumps another $3,000 or so. In some of the districts with large numbers of “at risk” students the number is well above $20,000.

It’s hard to imagine the school leaders can’t make that work.

In the end, I expect the court will acknowledge the fiscal jam the state is in and will take note of the governor’s reform efforts, which should translate into a more efficient use of funds. (And remember that constitutional phrase includes “efficient” – a notion that has been largely ignored by the court so far.)

The justices probably will ask for a bit more money and the governor will reluctantly go along.

What that figure might be remains in question. Having been a student of Trenton operations and politics for more than three decades it’s not inconceivable to me that there may be some backroom talk between the two parties on how much the state can reasonably afford.

And with that there won’t be yet another New Jersey-based reality show – one that features Christie and the justices arguing over who has a bigger one.