Lately some politicians have started a drumbeat that New Jersey needs a school funding formula where "money follows the child" without regard to the circumstances of the community in which they live.

Governor Jon Corzine recently put it this way in describing his soon-to-be-released funding proposal to the NJ League of Municipalities. The Governor announced that "the essence" of the new school funding formula being prepared by the State Education Department will "allocate dollars based on children and their needs, not by geography or zip codes."

Sounds good - treating all kids the same, no matter where they reside. But New Jersey and other states have seen these proposals before. Usually, they are a smokescreen for under-funding students attending public schools in poor communities, not to mention the first step towards using public education dollars for vouchers for private and religious schools.

Or in New Jersey's case, a smokescreen for ending "Abbott" funding for NJ's urban districts, and reducing the overall level of state aid to support educating children in our poorest schools. In other words, "follows the child" may well be a veneer to cover up diminishing state aid for students in our highest poverty schools and to redirect those funds to other school districts - a sort of "reverse Robin Hood."

This was the "essence" of Governor Whitman's 1997 funding law - the "Comprehensive Education Improvement and Financing Act" or CEIFA. CEIFA was touted as funding all children, no matter where they lived, at a level adequate to meet State academic standards. But in reality, the formula legislated inequality. It let affluent suburban districts spend at high levels to provide educational excellence, but locked poorer urban districts into spending much less. At least until the NJ Supreme Court declared CEIFA unconstitutional, ordering the State to equalize funding between suburban and urban students and schools.

Equal treatment for very unequal conditions is not equity, regardless of what any politician says. New Jersey's public schools remain among the nation's most intensely segregated along socio-economic and racial lines, and when the state school funding formula fails to recognize this reality, it compounds inequity. Like it or not, district and school enrollment characteristics remain the most critical factors for determining whether school funding is educationally adequate in the Garden State.

As the Supreme Court in the Abbott case has repeatedly found, it's not just that a few poor children attend Abbott schools. It's because MOST children in Abbott schools are poor, and experience every day the reality of drug abuse, crime, hunger, poor heath, illness and unstable family situations. Gang violence in many of these neighborhoods is so severe that just getting to school safely is an accomplishment. This is why these children - and their schools -- need extra state funding and support.

And this is precisely what the Abbott funds are designed to do - meet the extra-ordinary needs of students generated by the intense concentration of poverty in our urban public schools.

Of course, other districts also have pockets of poverty, and need additional help from the State. But again, don't be fooled. The Legislature and Governor could finally get serious about providing students in those districts at least some of the extra help the Abbott children now get, like full-day kindergarten and high quality preschool.

The statistics tell it all. Over two-thirds of the 320,000 students in urban schools are officially counted as poor, and most experts agree the number is actually higher. Of the 285,000 students in our most educationally successful suburban schools, only 3.5% of the students are poor. In a state with such extremes of concentrated poverty and affluence, Abbott funding has narrowed the funding gap. And because Abbott targets funding to programs that work, such as pre-k and early grade literacy, we're now closing the achievement gap.

When the new funding proposal is rolled-out, beware of catchy slogans and sound bites. In New Jersey, when it comes to the level of funding and quality of our public schools, geography and zip codes matter.

Prepared: November 20, 2007

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