ELC News - NJDOE Ed Cost Study Shortchanges Poor Students

The NJ Department of Education’s 2003 education cost study

ignores or minimizes essential and constitutionally required supplemental programs for poor students. As a result, the amount of supplemental or "at-risk" funding proposed by NJDOE is clearly inadequate to enable New Jersey’s neediest students to achieve state academic standards.

On December 11, 2006, the NJDOE released a summary report of the education cost study performed by the agency’s staff four years ago, which Education Commissioner Lucille Davy now wants to use as a basis for a new school funding formula. At a December 18th public hearing, education groups, advocates and legislators sharply criticized the study’s methods and determinations, with many calling for a new, independent cost study.

In the 2003 study, NJDOE staff determined education costs based on hypothetical districts and school resource models of varying size. The NJDOE models included additional or supplemental resources to help poor students and high poverty schools meet state academic standards. The cost of these extra resources was then determined as a percentage of the "base" or foundational education cost for all students, called an "at-risk weight." The DOE set the at-risk weight at 0.45 of the foundational education cost.

Research staff at Education Law Center (ELC) have analyzed and compared the extra resources added by NJDOE into its hypothetical resource models against the supplemental programs deemed essential by the NJ Supreme Court for poor students in the landmark Abbott v. Burke rulings. The Abbott supplemental programs were first ordered in the 1998 Abbott V decision based upon a full evidentiary record, and a report by a Special Master and the Chief Appellate Judge, concerning the needs of low income students in high poverty urban schools, and the programs necessary to enable those students and schools to meet state academic standards. The Court reaffirmed the need for these supplemental programs in June 2003 when it approved a mediation agreement between the NJDOE and ELC. Under the terms of that agreement, Abbott supplemental programs must continue to be implemented in urban schools.

ELC’s analysis

shows that the NJDOE resource models either minimize, or ignore altogether, the Abbott supplemental programs. Many required supplemental staff are not provided for at all, including instructional facilitators in elementary schools; community services coordinators in middle and high schools; and dropout prevention specialists. Other required Abbott supplemental programs -- implementation of which is based on local "particularized" need - are also missing, such as early grade math literacy and school-to-work and college transition programs, or only provided for in the very large district models, such as alternative middle and high school programs or on-site social services.

In addition, the Abbott supplemental program staff in the NJDOE models – elementary parent liaisons and social workers, for example – are included at the bare minimum level, regardless of school size or local particularized need. Still other programs, such as reading tutors in early grades, academic after and summer school, and alternative school are included at very low, predetermined funding levels, without any evidence of the actual needs of students and schools as Abbott requires. Still other Abbott supplemental program areas, such as enriched nutrition and extra initiatives in art, music and special education, are not included at all.

Class size and full day kindergarten are the only areas where it appears the DOE models meet the Abbott supplemental porgram requirement. However, the DOE models only contain a fixed allotment of "general" classroom teachers without detailing all of the K-12 content areas that must be taught to meet the State's core curriculum standards. Without more data from NJDOE, it is unclear whether the DOE models meet the Abbott class size standards and provide sufficient "regular and specialized" teachers to deliver the "basics" along with social studies, the arts, physical education and other required content areas, including honors and advanced placement courses in middle and high schools.

One example illustrates the extent to which NJDOE ignored the Abbott supplemental requirements in its cost study. In Abbott V, the Court expressly rejected a NJDOE proposal to provide a small, fixed number of guards to ensure safety in urban schools, without regard to school size, location, building issues, neighborhood violence and other factors. The Court noted that the needs for security in urban schools vary considerably, depending on these factors, noting evidence that Trenton Central High School requires over 20 security personnel. Yet the NJDOE 2003 cost study models provide for no security guards in elementary schools; 1 security guard for middle schools; 1 security guard for high schools in moderate size districts; and 7 and 8 security guards for high schools in large and very large districts. The NJDOE report provides no evidence to support these determinations, nor does the study suggest Abbott districts will have the opportunity to demonstrate the need for additional security staff and violence prevention programs based on local particularized need, as Abbott requires.

"Its hard to believe that NJDOE in its 2003 cost study would repeat the very same failures that led the Supreme Court to declare the funding levels for supplemental programs in former Governor Whitman’s CEIFA funding law unconstitutional," said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director. "This educational and constitutional flaw in the 2003 cost study is fundamental, and cannot be corrected by ‘tweaking’ the NJDOE’s hypothetical models. This is yet another reason why the Legislature must authorize a new, independent cost study, one that addresses the unique needs of New Jersey’s poorest students and schools, and that takes into account the requirements established by the Court in the Abbott rulings."