Too soon to scrap Abbott
Posted by Star-Ledger editorial board November 19, 2008 10:30PM

The New Jersey Supreme Court, like a watchful gardener, has tended to the
issue it seeded more than 30 years ago when it first ordered extra state
funding for the public schools in New Jersey's poorest communities.

The judicial involvement has "spanned decades," as the justices noted
Tuesday in the most recent ruling on the Abbott school funding case. The
court's reaffirmation of Abbott has also spanned changes in the
configuration of the court itself. With some changes, the court seemed
likely to uproot the original finding that a constitutional mandate exists
to guarantee the quality of education by providing state supplemental aid
where needed.

Thankfully, those courts, including the current one in its ruling Tuesday,
rejected the idea that the Abbott case should die.

The Corzine administration sought court approval of a new state school
financial aid formula. The new formula rejects special funding for 31 Abbott
districts in favor of calculations that distribute $7.8 billion among all
schools -- $4.1 billion of it to the Abbotts -- based on the number of
disadvantaged students they have and a district's ability to provide for
them.

The administration was asking that the justices, in approving the new
formula, obliterate all previous methods of calculating financial parity
with richer districts. Such a ruling would have meant that the Abbott case,
Abbott funding and any further judicial involvement were no longer
necessary.

The court ruled that the state had failed to prove that the formula met the
special needs of the Abbott districts. There are important questions to
answer. Will plowing Abbott funding into one statewide formula dilute the
money and eventually destroy the hard-won academic progress that Abbott
schools are showing? The court, in a 5-0 ruling, said it needed live
testimony and cross-examination, not the sterile formulas and affidavits
that the administration offered, before it could judge the matter.

The court appointed a special master, Bergen County Superior Court Judge
Peter Doyne, who will hold hearings and gather facts that the administration
should have brought to court. The information that Doyne provides, the court
ruled, will be used to decide the validity of the funding formula and with
it the fate of special aid for Abbott schools. That is how it should be.

Everyone must accept the fact that in 30 years' time, things change. What
was originally ordered may not be what is currently required. Certainly
other school districts have as much need for extra state aid, perhaps even
more, than some of those on the Abbott list.

How much schools need cannot be determined by the vague principles the
Corzine administration has enunciated about allowing the money to follow the
child. The question that must be answered is whether the new formula will
spread state aid so thin that neither the Abbotts nor other needy schools
get any real benefit.

The new funding calculations were enacted by the Legislature and rushed
through in a few short weeks during a lame-duck session at the end of last
year. The haste precluded the kind of hearings, thorough examination and
deliberation that spending $7.8 billion in public money requires. It was a
foolish, political push, and concern about the results extends beyond the
Abbotts to all schools, given the way this important matter was treated.

Many sage voices criticized the quick-fix treatment. The New Jersey Law
Journal called for the appointment of a special master to give the Supreme
Court a record to use in judging the new formula. Fortunately, the court had
the same idea.

Each time the case has come back to the court, the justices have been
consistent and deliberate in their review. They have heard the partisan
clamor from opposing sides on this issue. They have properly declared that
they must hear the facts.

There are flaws in Abbott. For years, the state was lax in keeping watch
over the billions spent. That is one reason the judicially inspired garden
is only now beginning to sprout. With better application of what the court
ordered, Abbott districts might be in bloom.

Abbott's critics have couched the funding issue as Abbott kids -- those who
live in Newark, Camden and other New Jersey cities -- vs. all the other
kids. It is not.

New Jersey cannot prosper if it fails to provide a viable education for the
sizable number of children living in the Abbott districts. The future of
those children is fully entwined with the future of all this state's
residents.