A Half-Baked School Funding Plan

By Edwards, Gregg M

Board of Contributors

GOV. JON CORZINE is wasting a rare opportunity to improve New Jersey’s public schools. His school funding proposal contains the seeds of much-needed reform, but it fails to provide the conditions that will allow the seeds to take root. In the end, the proposal merely rejiggers the manner in which tax dollars are doled out to school districts.

The core of Corzine’s plan is a sound one; he’s proposed a child- focused funding scheme or what is sometimes called weighted per- pupil funding (WPPF). First, the cost of educating the typical child in accordance with established academic standards is determined. That cost becomes a universal foundation to which is added other amounts that account for a child’s needs or circumstances. For example, additional aid usually is allocated to a child who requires instructional programs necessitated by a learning disability or to deal with the challenges of educating a child from a low-income family or an area with a high concentration of poverty.

In a true WPPF system, the funding allocation is attached to the child and follows that child to the school he or she attends, and schools are given greater control over their programmatic budgets.

The range of educational choices available to families depends on how the program is structured. A narrowly structured program allows families to select any public school in the district in which they reside. A more robust form of the program allows families to use the money to attend any participating public or private school regardless of its location.

Corzine describes his proposal as “the dollars follow the child,” but that is a misrepresentation. In fact, the dollars don’t follow the child and schools aren’t given more programmatic control. Instead, state aid and local property taxes are sent directly to the school district. This is exactly how the current system operates.

A school district-focused funding system does nothing to force poor performing districts or schools to improve. The chronically failing schools in many of New Jersey’s urban communities aren’t likely to change unless the children forced to attend those schools are given other options. When children start leaving bad schools, those schools will improve so that they can stop the exodus or they will close.

The WPPF’s beauty is that it encourages successful schools with available capacity to enroll children from failing schools. That’s because the funding attached to those children is likely to be greater than the actual per-pupil costs of the receiving school. The receiving school can use some or all of the difference to subsidize its operating budget.

Corzine’s half-baked plan doesn’t provide the advantages of a bona fide “dollars follow the child” system. Corzine and the lame- duck Legislature are determined to enact the plan before the new Legislature is seated Jan. 8. If they get their way, it will be a disappointing start for the new year.

Gregg Art. Edwards is president of the Center for Policy Research of New Jersey, an independent nonprofit organization that develops and promotes policy initiatives. He was executive director of the state Senate from 1994 to 2002.

Copyright Journal Publications Inc. Dec 31, 2007

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