Every once in a while I head over to the PolitickerNJ.com website and read what some of New Jersey’s muckety-mucks have to say about what’s going on in our state. This morning, I was glad to see that one New Jersey State Senator is openly questioning the “at risk” designation that applies to some New Jersey students versus others. Here’s the article, in full:
TRENTON – It’s a favorite issue of state Sen. Mike Doherty (R-Washington Twp.), a rural legislator who grew up in Essex County and long heard what he interpreted as the sucking sound of money from the suburbs into Newark.
Conceding that Newark’s porverty rate stands at 24%, Doherty believes urban schools unfairly receive a disproportionately high share of state aid based on the designation of “at-risk” children.
In his turn at the microphone here during this Budget and appropriations hearing, he drums the issue into the consciousness of Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff.
The average New Jersey pupil receives $9,600, while an at-risk student gets an additional $8,000 or $9,000.
Doherty wants more oversight concerning that designation, particularly in a city where there is an international airport, sports arena and numerous other facilities lacking in rural Warren and Hunterdon counties, which comprise Doherty’s home district.
“If administrators are not checking, perhaps there may be an incentive to get that number (of at-risk children) up because it bumps up the amount of state aid you’re getting,” Doherty says.
I see this stuff almost everyday at my day job – a school comes to us for financing and they are either able to afford it because they receive an abundance of “at risk” aid or they are unable to afford a facility upgrade because they don’t receive any “at risk” aid. It’s very cut and dry – either you get the money or you don’t.
The state is engaged in a deep conversation about the current school funding formula, how education funding should be changed, and what the final outcome will be for school districts and educators. A crucial part of this conversation – indeed the very base of the conversation – must be a discussion about property taxes in New Jersey. Why must this be the base of the conversation? Because in New Jersey, education is funded through property taxes. And anyone who even takes a cursory look at the school funding formula will find that the current property tax system in New Jersey is essentially a wealth redistribution system.
In essence, money is sucked from the suburbs and sent to the urban districts. As Senator Doherty says above, every single one of these “at risk” students located in urban districts receives an additional $8,000 to $9,000 in state education aid. Where does that money come from? Well, New Jersey doesn’t have the highest property taxes in the nation by mistake!
The root of the problem with the “at risk” aid is that it ties educational performance to cost per pupil…and it’s wrong. One only needs to look at the Asbury Park School District – where hundreds of thousands and even millions of additional aid dollars have been dumped over the years – to see that more money does not equal higher student engagement or performance.
Education – the actual act of learning something new and retaining that knowledge – doesn’t happen because of more money being dumped into a school district. Real learning takes place because a great educator can relate to and “reach” a student. It’s plain and simple. If the wrong people are in education in the first place, then you wind up with students who are not engaged, not learning, and who do not want to be in school.
Education reform has to take place from both the bottom up (getting the right people in schools) and from the top down (fixing the funding formula).
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