Abolish ABBOTT!!!!!
Please write to your state legislator, Abbots need mandated per student spending caps or gotta go,...NOW!!!
* 31 of 600 Plus districts get 50% of the State Ed money, and there is no Over-site of the Abbot Spending
www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061120/NEWS03/611200407TRENTON — Educators in the state's poorest school districts are worried they will be shortchanged if legislators approve a proposal to reduce property taxes by changing how extra money goes to the state's neediest schools.
As part of efforts to reduce New Jersey's highest-in-the-nation property taxes, legislators proposed a number of measures — including getting rid of special funding for the 31 Abbott districts, identified as the state's neediest.
Instead, education money would be allocated based on a formula developed by legislators and based on how many needy students live in a district. Other factors such as special education would also be weighed.
Legislators say that the new formula is designed to be more equitable to middle-class districts.
"Our goal is to make sure we get better results for kids throughout the state," state Sen. John Adler, D-Camden, co-chairman of the panel that developed the proposal, told The Philadelphia Inquirer for Sunday newspapers.
But the plan has angered many educators in the Abbott districts, which were designated under a series of state Supreme Court rulings. Such districts receive more than half the state's education dollars.
The legislators have said there will be no drop in aid for any district next year. But educators in the Abbott districts worry the situation could change as the years go by. They also warn that changes could lead to a lawsuit.
"The new funding formula needs to preserve and strengthen the programs and reforms that are court-ordered, constitutionally required, and that have been the basis for real progress," said David Sciarra, executive director of the Newark-based Education Law Center, which has argued on behalf of the Abbott districts and their 350,000 students.
The proposal legislators are considering would do away with the special category of state funding for Abbott districts, in which millions of dollars have been pumped under court order into the mostly urban districts.
Paul Tractenberg, a founder of the Education Law Center, lamented that the new plan goes back to the "old system of top-down." He thought the proposal went against the state constitution.
State Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy insisted the idea is about helping needy children across the state, not just in the Abbott districts.
"We're committed to ensuring that the Abbott districts have the resources they need," Davy said.
