Opinion ID: 1898472
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Impact of the Level of Funding on the Quality of Education

Text: The State's claim that the statistical evidence fails to prove a significant relationship between education expenditures and property wealth is joined with a more fundamental objection: money is not a critical factor in the quality of education in the first place. The position is not quite that extreme, of course  obviously, a certain minimum amount is needed to operate an effective school system, as the Commissioner notes. But beyond that minimum amount, not clearly defined in the record, the difference, the excess, is characterized as an unreliable indicator of the quality of education, and what the money buys  better staff ratios, more experienced teachers, equipment, more varied course offerings  is not determinative either. The conclusion is that since all districts in the state have much more than whatever the minimum amount may be, the excess and the differences in the excess, are irrelevant to the quality of education. The impact of this position is that if a thorough and efficient education is not being achieved, money is neither the cause nor the remedy. Furthermore, wide disparity in educational funding, between the poorer urban and richer suburban districts, does not establish failure of thorough and efficient, nor, by the State's hypothesis, does disparity of funding establish any consequent disparity in substantive education. The State's position here is almost the reverse of one of the premises of Robinson I, that dollar input [was] plainly relevant, 62 N.J. at 515, 303 A. 2d 273, and that in the absence of other proof it was the sole determinant of the quality of education. The Commissioner attacks that proposition head-on. We deal here with questions of educational theory debated over the years, and now debated by experts of the very highest order. These issues have come to the fore not just in this case but throughout the nation, with states struggling as we are here in New Jersey to find an answer to urban problems, especially urban education. Studies of the most sophisticated design, pilot projects, reams after reams of case histories of schools, districts, and students, learned treatises, books, television programs  all directed at the same question: what produces good education in urban schools? The only thing universally agreed on is that those schools are failing. After that, controversy abounds. Our observation, simplistic perhaps, that money is only one of a number of elements [involved in education], Robinson V, supra, 69 N.J. at 455, 355 A. 2d 129, still represents most of what one can profitably glean from this controversy for the purposes of this litigation. More concretely, while we are unable to conclude from this record that the State is clearly wrong, we would not strip all notions of equal and adequate funding from the constitutional obligation unless we were convinced that the State was clearly right. The results of all of this research, while promising and constructive, are inconclusive, at least on the underlying issue before us. It shows beyond doubt that money alone has not worked. It shows promising success in many different approaches emphasizing techniques, relationships, social forces, motivation, approaches often quite different from conventional instruction. But it does not show that money makes no difference. What it strongly suggests is that money can be used more effectively than it is being used today. The inconclusiveness of the research is conceded, at least to the extent of admitting that although money is not the main determinant of the quality of education no one is quite convinced what is, nor totally confident about what works. The underlying subject matter is most complex, and the experts note the need for studies of much greater duration than theirs. Viewing it from that perspective, despite their sophisticated designs, the studies are characterized by the ALJ as relatively primitive. The Commissioner has adopted as his preferred approach to education that known as effective schools. [38] The methods and underlying concepts incorporated in the effective schools approach seem logical and practical. It is asserted to have the additional advantage of being inexpensive. The evidence that it works is encouraging. The Commissioner is trying to implement such methods throughout the state, in particular in Jersey City. They are, as noted later, specifically targeted to the urban areas. There is no suggestion that they can either be put in place or have their effect on students in a short time. We agree with the ALJ that no matter how promising effective schools may be, the proofs fall short of any showing that at present expenditure levels they will lead to a thorough and efficient education in poorer urban districts. Furthermore, we find nothing in the record, nor did the Commissioner attempt to prove, that even with implementation of effective schools, educational disparity will not remain. We are willing, for the purposes of this case, to assume that if successful, effective schools at present funding levels would diminish the gross disparity in substantive education and pupil performance now found between poorer urban and richer suburban districts; by that, however, we mean that it would diminish, not eliminate, gross disparities. While applicable to education in all districts, the underlying theory seems to be that these would be particularly helpful techniques in poorer urban districts. The determinants, the effective schools approach, address many of the factors that pervade and define the low socioeconomic status that characterizes poorer urban districts: lack of community and parental involvement, consequent lack of motivation, and low expectations of student success. In short, effective schools attempts to redress the disparity that life and its environment bring to most of the students in poorer urban districts, the underlying disparity that is thought by many to be the major factor in the failure of education in these areas. The Commissioner has concluded that the effective schools program will significantly increase the possibility that students in poorer urban districts will be able to realize their potential. If he is correct, they will, as a result, be better equipped as citizens and workers, but they may still be considerably disadvantaged as they try to enter a society and work force occupied by pupils from the richer districts. Not even this amount of amelioration is certain, and just putting it in place and testing it will take years, perhaps the better part of the school life remaining for some of those disadvantaged students now attending school. We realize that the constitutional guarantee of a thorough and efficient education does not mean the rejection of every method of education, including effective schools, that does not guarantee it. Constitutional implementation in this area must be practical and not necessarily risk free. Under the circumstances of this case, however, given the plight of these districts and their students, the Court requires more than optimism. These children are entitled to the Commissioner's best thinking; they are entitled to effective schools if that is what he concludes is required; but they are also, at the same time, entitled to a fair chance in the form of a greater equality of funding. They have already waited too long for a remedy, one that will give them the same level of opportunity, the same chance, as their colleagues who are lucky enough to be born in a richer suburban district. The decisions regularly made by school districts, the Commissioner, and the Board are based on the premise that what money buys affects the quality of education. Local school boards regularly try to increase their budgets for the explicit purpose of improving the education provided in the district; the Commissioner regularly decides school board budget appeals invariably casting his decision in terms of how much more money is needed for educational improvement; the entire state aid program itself is based on the assumption that money makes a difference in the quality of education; the numerous special programs and pilot projects initiated by the Board and the Commissioner, often accompanied by grant funds, demonstrate the perceived need for money in effecting innovative educational improvement; all of the evidence of high quality education in the richer suburbs on this record attests to the role of money in producing it; the Commissioner's statutory power to require local districts to increase their budgets assumes the relationship; the State's contention that local districts are obliged to increase budgets as much as is needed to achieve a thorough and efficient education also assumes it; and each one of these decisions, actions, or provisions accepts the proposition that what money buys  improved staff ratios, higher teacher salaries, expanded course offerings, more equipment  makes a difference. This conventional wisdom is not just for laypersons, it is the fundamental premise of decision-making by those in charge of education in the districts and in the state. We therefore adhere to the conventional wisdom that money is one of the many factors that counts. Staff ratios, breadth of course offerings, teacher experience and qualifications, and availability of equipment make a real difference in educational opportunity. We do not mean that money guarantees a thorough and efficient education, nor that, given the approach recommended by the Commissioner, a lower spending district with an effective schools program will not do better than a higher spending district without it. All we mean is that if effective schools is a desirable approach, it should be superimposed on a structure that starts out equal. There is nothing in this modern school of thought that suggests it will not work because it is applied to an urban district that has adequate and equal funding. One aspect of the State's claims that the deficiencies in education are not related either to expenditures per pupil or to property wealth is that they are related to mismanagement in certain districts. The State's claim is that there has been incompetence, politics, and worse in the operation of some urban districts. While mismanagement has undoubtedly occurred, we agree with the ALJ that it has not been a significant factor in the general failure to achieve a thorough and efficient education in poorer urban districts. It is not just Jersey City that has failed; students in all of the poorer urban districts simply do not receive the quality of education they need to equip them as citizens and competitors in the market, especially when compared to the education given in the affluent suburbs. No amount of administrative skill will redress this deficiency and disparity  and its cause is not mismanagement. These persistent and growing disparities force us again to face the question of the validity of the minimum aid provisions of the Act. Although not declared unconstitutional, those provisions were noted in Robinson I, IV, and V as productive of expenditure disparity. On one occasion the minimum aid funds were ordered to be added to equalization funds and distributed as such. Robinson IV, supra, 69 N.J. at 149-50, 351 A. 2d 713. That order never took effect. Robinson V, supra, 69 N.J. at 467-68, 355 A. 2d 129. The minimum aid formula in the Act is counter-equalizing. It is distributed only to districts whose tax base exceeds the Act's guaranteed tax base, in other words, only to relatively richer districts. Its sole function is to enable richer districts to spend even more, thereby increasing the disparity of educational funding between richer and poorer. While substantially less than the amount of such aid under prior law ($48 million in the Act's second year as opposed to $290 million prior to the Act), the amount nevertheless is substantial and the distribution formula of the Act is worse, for it provides no such aid to poor districts. In 1984-85, minimum aid totaled $92.7 million and in 1989-90 it equaled $162.7 million. Under prior law all districts shared in minimum aid. Minimum aid, for instance, in 1984-85 went to such districts as Englewood Cliffs, which received $135 per pupil although it had an equalized valuation per pupil of $1.24 million, and Saddle River Borough, which received $177 per pupil, with an equalized valuation per pupil of $1.23 million. During that same year Camden, East Orange, Newark, and Trenton, for instance, received none. While not declaring minimum aid unconstitutional, we previously noted its deficiencies in Robinson V, supra, 69 N.J. at 467, 355 A. 2d 129, as did the ALJ, the Commissioner, and the Board in this case. Since we have ruled today that disparity alone does not render the Act unconstitutional, it might be thought that portions of the Act contributing to disparity are therefore not vulnerable to constitutional attack. Furthermore, since our remedy allows expenditure disparity to continue to exist so long as a thorough and efficient education is brought to the poorer urban districts, this particular disparity-producing cause would seem of no constitutional significance. Disparity of funding is relevant to our constitutional conclusion. That conclusion is based not only on our finding of a substantive lack in the quality of education in these poorer urban districts but also on the significant disparity of spending between them and the richer districts. That disparity strongly supports and is a necessary element of our conclusion that the education provided these students from poorer urban districts will not enable them to compete with their suburban colleagues or to function effectively as citizens in the same society. Given the history of the role of disparate funding and the denial of a thorough and efficient education, and the difficulty experienced by the Legislature in providing full funding in accordance with the Act, continuation of minimum aid in its present form threatens the Legislature's effectuation of the remedy provided herein, the attainment of its constitutional goal, and the future maintenance of a thorough and efficient education both in poorer urban districts and elsewhere. We therefore hold such minimum aid provisions of the present Act unconstitutional, effective commencing with the school year 1991-92. If, however, the Legislature enacts a new funding system and provides for a phase-in of the new system along with a phase-out of the old, the Act's minimum aid may be eliminated in accordance with that timetable. In effect, we hold that under the present funding scheme state aid that is counter-equalizing, that increases funding disparities, and that has no arguable educational or administrative justification, is unconstitutional. Categorical aid, although not as equalizing as equalization aid, is not counter-equalizing: it goes to all districts, and in fact more of it goes to the poorer districts. Furthermore, it has clear educational justification: it helps meet the cost of educating students with special needs, who reside in all districts, richer and poorer. Transportation aid similarly goes to all districts and is distributed in a way that bears no relationship to the wealth of the district. It has obvious educational justification. State aid to fund the Teachers' Pension and Annuity Fund (TPAF), however, distributed to all districts, is in effect counter-equalizing (since richer districts receive a larger share of TPAF contributions because they tend to have proportionately more and higher-paid teachers, the base on which TPAF aid is calculated). The administrative considerations that justify the present system were thought sufficient reason for its continuance in Robinson IV, supra, 69 N.J. at 150, 351 A. 2d 713 (redistribution of the pension contribution aid would be inadvisable). We will at this time abide by that judgment without foreclosing the possibility that such aid may be constitutionally infirm. We stress that it is state aid only that we are discussing here. The fundamental inequality of local funding through the property tax and the funding disparities it produces are asserted to have a justification in its assurance of local control and its encouragement of citizens' participation in their local school system. Without in any way commenting on that assertion, there is no such justification when state aid is concerned. Minimum aid may facilitate the compromises needed to secure passage of important legislation of this kind. We express no judgment on that process or the undoubted difficulties that accompany it. Despite this important role, however, minimum aid in the present funding scheme has no policy justification. Given its actual and potential adverse impact on today's remedy and on the future achievement of a thorough and efficient education, we declare it unconstitutional.