Newark, NJ, October 28, 2009

On September 14th, NJ Commissioner of Education Lucille Davy quietly released needs assessments of 16 rural school districts previously found to be failing to provide a thorough and efficient education under the NJ Constitution.

Based on self-surveys, and a single site visit by NJ Department of Education staff, Commissioner Davy concluded that the rural districts should be able to address any educational needs through the new state school funding formula, even though the Legislature failed to fund the formula in 2009-10. The Commissioner rejected the districts’ request for additional relief customized to meet their students’ unique needs.

"Rather than dig-in and assess the particular needs of the rural districts, schools and students, NJDOE did a ‘drive-by,’ cursory review," said Fred Jacob, the districts’ attorney in the Bacon case. "Even worse, the State offers only the hollow, unfulfilled promises contained in the SFRA and CORE laws, when the districts urgently need concrete funding, programs and reforms to assure their students a high quality education," Mr. Jacob added.

The needs assessments were ordered by a State Appellate Court over a year ago in the case of Bacon v. NJDOE. Specifically, the Commissioner was directed "to focus on the unique set of circumstances confronting students of these poor rural districts that distinguish them from their urban counterparts; assess the special educational needs of the students in each of the Bacon districts; and identify the approaches that will effectively address those needs."

The assessments describe in general terms a variety of "challenges" faced by rural districts, given conditions such as intense student poverty, low community wealth, high student mobility rates, and deteriorating facilities. While finding that three of the sixteen districts could do more with the resources available to them, the assessments commended the remainder of the districts for their dedication to the goal of improving student performance.

However, beyond its general statistical review, NJDOE did not perform any "particularized" analysis of the academic, social, health, safety and other needs of the rural students and schools. The assessments failed to delve into characteristics of each district’s students, such as the students in families of migrant workers, or who speak primarily Spanish, or who lack access to adequate medical care, and other unique needs in rural communities.

Other than training in topics such as differentiated instruction and intervention and referral, NJDOE did not recommend any specific programs, reforms or other measures to address the needs of rural students. Instead, NJDOE indicated that it has made unspecified "arrangements" with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Lab, a research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, to meet the districts needs "for staff development in the various content areas as well as with special needs children who need particular attention and strategies in order to succeed." However, no concrete parameters or time frames were established for this assistance.

Notably, NJDOE reached the same conclusion in all sixteen assessments -- that all the challenges facing the Bacon districts can be satisfied by laws currently in effect: the K-12 funding and Abbott preschool expansion authorized in the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA); the 2008 amendments to the Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act (EFCFA) authorizing state grants for facilities construction to districts who can raise their local share; and, for many of the districts, the 2007 CORE legislation directing the Executive County Superintendent to undertake regionalization studies and to recommend school district consolidation plans.

NJDOE specifically recognized that SFRA was "not designed to support the delivery of educational services in school districts" as small as 12 of the 16 Bacon districts, but concluded that those districts must await consolidation studies by the County Executive Superintendent under the 2007 CORE legislation.

While relying on the SFRA and CORE laws, the NJDOE omits any reference to three key issues:

• The SFRA formula was substantially under-funded in this year, shortchanging seven of the rural districts $8.6 million in state aid increases cited in the needs assessments as necessary for improvement;
• The "dramatic increase" in access to preschool under SFRA cited in the needs assessments was also not funded, depriving the rural districts of support to enroll 742 children in the Abbott preschool program this year; and
• The needs assessments fail to mention that local voters must approve any consolidation plan proposed by the Executive County Superintendent, and there is no further recourse under the CORE legislation if voters reject the plan.

On the issue of school facilities, including space needed to implement preschool expansion if and when such expansion is funded, NJDOE touts the availability of state grants are under EFCFA to partially support needed school construction projects, but fails to address the historical inability of rural districts to pass local bond referenda to raise the local share required to access state grant funds.