Jersey’s Funds For Schools Found Flawed
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New Jersey’s system of financing public education was declared constitutionally flawed today by a state administrative law judge who said it failed to eliminate financing disparities between affluent suburban and poor urban school districts. New Jersey’s system of financing public education was declared constitutionally flawed today by a state administrative law judge who said it failed to eliminate financing disparities between affluent suburban and poor urban school districts. The 607-page ruling by Judge Steven L. Lefelt, which is expected to be reviewed by the New Jersey Supreme Court, the state’s highest court, found that the state’s school financing law contained the same problems that it was designed to address when it was enacted in 1975. In 1973, the State Supreme Court struck down the state’s old system of school financing, which relied chiefly on local property taxes, saying it guaranteed that students in tax-poor urban districts would receive an education inferior to that offered students in wealthy suburbs. The ruling led to the enactment of the state income tax and the state’s ”thorough and efficient” school law, which increased state aid to local districts from 28 percent of the total spent on education to 42 percent. ‘Systemic Defects’ More : query.nytimes.com |