ABBOTT REFORM: IS IT ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS, OR FUNDING?We won the funding battle, but lost the war!Nothing Will Change without Real Self-Determination, Real Local Empowerment, Real Equal Opportunity | |
| E3's BOARD Allen Barnhardt President Orange City Council (NJ) General Alfred Cade (Retired) Former Chair NJ Commision on Higher Ed. Sondra Clark President, Black United Fund Saul Cooperman Former Commissioner NJ State Board of Ed. Keith DaCosta Executive Vice President 100 Black Men of NJ Peter Denton Founder and Chairman E3 Denton Companies Dan Gaby Executive Director E3 George Harris Trustee Schumann Fund for NJ Rev. Reginald Jackson Executive Director Black Ministers' Council Chris Jacob Managing Director Merlin BioMed Mary Jo Kapalko President NJ Public Charter School Assoc. Right Rev. Msgr. William J. Linder Founder New Community Corp. Michelle Doran-McBean President Future City, Inc. Francisco Moran Camden City Council (NJ) Martin Perez President Latino Leadership Alliance Mary Rone President NJ Association of Public and Subsidized Housing Residents Edward Stier Former Chairman of the Board The Chad School Robert C. Waggoner President & CEO Burrelle's Information Services Richard A. Zimmer Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher |
For a quarter century the fight for urban school reform in
New Jersey has been fought on the battlefield of increased funding for
urban districts. Unfortunately, for all the increased funding allocated to
the Abbott districts, there have been no significant improvements in our
urban education system. We have won the spending battle and lost the
school reform war and 100,000's of children in the process. This is an
ongoing human tragedy in our state that we can no longer tolerate.
We need to realize that there are three battlefields on which we can fight for urban education reform. First, of course, is the demand for additional and ever increasing spending (and taxes). Second is to press for accountability and performance of the existing system. Third is the realization that urban education reform is an issue of civil rights, equal opportunity to education, basic fairness, and empowering poor parents to get control over their children's education. Well-meaning education reformers are going to have to pick which battlefield on which to fight. Their choice will have a huge impact on their success. On the first (funding) battlefield, there is an ongoing and increasingly strident argument going on in New Jersey about increases in funding for our urban (Abbott) districts. We need to carefully discuss whether this conflict over funding levels, in light of the State's budgetary problems and the continuing failure of our urban public school systems, is relevant to true urban school reform. First full disclosure: Excellent Education for Everyone, Inc., (E3), is an urban public education reform organization that believes strongly in parental school choice. E3's objective is to insure that all of New Jersey's children, no matter what their family, economic situation or the color of their skin, receive an excellent education. E3 fully supports Abbott funding decisions and is not focused on saving taxpayer dollars spent on urban education. However, we are extremely concerned that the education reform discussion in New Jersey is shifting from accountability and results to funding and other process issues that demonstrably have little to do with educating children. A few critical facts for background. A generation ago, New Jersey's suburban districts spent more per child on education than our urban districts. This was primarily due to the higher real estate tax base available in suburban districts. Various Supreme Court decisions since the 1970s have forced the state to significantly increase urban district funding using state tax revenues (sales and income taxes). Today, statewide spending for K-12 education in New Jersey averages about $12,000 /child/per year. Spending in Abbott districts exceeds $15,000 /child and some districts (Asbury Park, Camden) is as high as $17,000 to $18,000 per child. Suburban spending is about $10,000 to $11,000 per child. New Jersey spends more on K-12 pubic education than any state in the country, by far. In fact, spending in our urban districts is twice the national average (of all schools) and is 30-40% more than New Jersey suburban district spending. However, the horrible reality is that over the last generation, as we've doubled or tripled spending, the performance of our urban public schools have steadily declined (measured by reduced college attendance rates, standardized test scores, K-12 attendance rates, high school graduation rates, etc). New Jersey's record of huge increases in urban education spending over the last generation, coupled with this lack of results, makes arguments for increased funding more and more difficult to sustain. But, even if additional funding is not the answer, or is not available, we still have the obligation as citizens to provide an excellent education for all of our children. What are we doing wrong? And how do we deal with the political realities and funding constraints of Trenton and still improve urban public education? If New Jersey's urban education reformers continue to focus only on additional funding as the solution to urban education reform, they are doomed to failure. Budgetary constraints today in New Jersey are well known. As noted above, we already fund urban districts 30-40% more than suburban districts, but have decreasing performance. If we continue to fight on the spending battlefield, we will exacerbate conflicts between urban and suburban residents, whites versus people of color, political parties and religious groups. All of which will have no impact on educating our most disadvantaged children. A constitutional convention has been suggested to move our tax burden from property taxes to other broad based taxes. While the sponsors will try to limit the scope of the convention, what if the attendees remove the "thorough and efficient clause" from the state Constitution, (on which all of the State Supreme court Abbott decisions are based)? A newly elected Democratic governor dealing with a budget deficit is already limiting funding for our Abbott districts. This is a demonstration of the rifts in our society that are opened by the continuing demands for increased urban education spending. The second possible battlefield is accountability. There has been good work done by New Jersey United and others pressing for standardized testing, reporting of test scores, and accountability of the present system. All of these efforts are useful, and try to focus discussions on outcomes, not process. However, we have been publicly reporting standardized test scores in New Jersey for decades. We've known our urban districts are failing for a generation, but no reform has been accomplished, even when faced with dreadful test scores. Clearly there is something else wrong. We need to shift to the third battleground - civil rights. Most of the children damaged by urban school systems are children of color (African American, Latinos and others). Roughly 80% of the parents in New Jersey have school choice. They have enough money to send their children to private schools or move to a well performing district. But approximately 20% of the children, mostly located in the Abbott districts, do not have the economic power to send their children to well performing public schools. Their lack of power has made it impossible for their children to have an equal opportunity to education. This is the last unfulfilled civil right in the United States. The experience of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with parental school choice over the last dozen years demonstrates clearly that the implementation of parental school choice drives improvements in urban public schools. It also provides alternatives for children who are best educated in a non-public environment. While it is true that education of children in choice programs costs less than public schools, implementation of parental school choice programs is not done to save money. E3 believes that a sound educational system brings the long term societal benefits of reducing poverty, incarceration rates, child abuse, drug and alcohol addictions, etc. We recommend strongly that any urban education reformer consider closely the benefits of empowering poor parents to get control over significant percentage of the public education dollars that are allocated to their child. Once disadvantaged parents are given the power to move their children out of these failed schools, this competitive pressure will force reform of the bureaucratic, monopolistic public school system. It has been done in Milwaukee and other places in the world and it can be done in New Jersey. We should approach urban education reform as a civil rights issue with the understanding that providing this last unfulfilled civil right requires empowering poor parents. We can form a coalition of African Americans, Latinos, Asians and whites, Democratic and Republicans, all religious groups, business and labor and come together to truly reform urban public schools and provide an excellent education for all of our children. |