Opinion ID: 1898472
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Quality of Students' Needs in the Poorer Urban Districts

Text: This record shows that the educational needs of students in poorer urban districts vastly exceed those of others, especially those from richer districts. The difference is monumental, no matter how it is measured. Those needs go beyond educational needs, they include food, clothing and shelter, and extend to lack of close family and community ties and support, and lack of helpful role models. They include the needs that arise from a life led in an environment of violence, poverty, and despair. Urban youth are often isolated from the mainstream of society. Education forms only a small part of their home life, sometimes no part of their school life, and the dropout is almost the norm. There are exceptions, fortunately, but substantial numbers of urban students fit this pattern. The goal is to motivate them, to wipe out their disadvantages as much as a school district can, and to give them an educational opportunity that will enable them to use their innate ability. In 1985-86, every district in DFG A and all but two districts in DFG B failed to meet the State standard for the High School Proficiency Test (HSPT). Moreover, every poorer urban district in DFGs A and B failed to meet this standard. These tests do not purport to measure or define a thorough and efficient education. They are designed to show mastery of basic skills and, while upgraded from the past, essentially measure the minimum level of learning needed to go on to more difficult subjects. The Legislature regards these tests as a prerequisite to, not an equivalent of, a thorough and efficient education. The failure rate of these poorer urban districts on even this minimal test, the depth of that failure, testifies eloquently not just about their inadequate performance, but about their need. The shocking contrast to the performance of students from richer suburban districts completes the picture. The Commissioner has determined that satisfactory performance on this test requires a passing score by 75% of the district's students in grade nine of each school in each of the three categories. In 1985-86, of more than 14,000 ninth graders in school districts in DFG A who took the HSPT, only 54% passed the reading test, 42% passed the math test, and 43% passed writing. The poorer urban districts in DFG A did even worse. In Newark, for example, only 41% of ninth graders who took the test passed reading, 31% passed math, and 39% passed writing. In Camden, 36% passed reading, 28% passed math, and 44% passed writing. By contrast, in school districts in DFG J, of 5,400 ninth graders tested, 97% passed reading, 93% passed math and 95% passed writing. Statewide, 83% of students tested passed reading, 72% passed math, and 77% passed writing. [34] The dropout rate in these poorer urban districts is further testimony both to their failure and to the students' needs. The unofficial dropout rate (1984-85) for some urban high schools can be as high as 47%. [35] A district cannot deliver a thorough and efficient education to a dropout. For a multitude of tragic reasons, these students lack the most basic requirement for achieving a thorough and efficient education  the will to learn. That characteristic is assumed, accepted, a given, in richer suburban districts. The record evidence of the quality of education in poorer urban districts and the desperate needs of their students clearly indicates that a significantly different approach to education is required if these districts and their students are to succeed. Furthermore, there is a wealth of material outside of the record to the same effect. [36] The nation has come to recognize the education of the urban poor as a most difficult and important problem. While opinions concerning the methods, approaches, and techniques differ concerning their effectiveness, their advantages and disadvantages, there is solid agreement on the basic proposition that conventional education is totally inadequate to address the special problems of the urban poor. Something quite different is needed, something that deals not only with reading, writing, and arithmetic, but with the environment that shapes these students' lives and determines their educational needs. Obviously, we are no more able to identify what these disadvantaged students need in concrete educational terms than are the experts. What they don't need is more disadvantage, in the form of a school district that does not even approach the funding level that supports advantaged students. They need more, and the law entitles them to more. Many students in poorer urban districts do not have books at home. These students obviously need adequate libraries and media centers. Educators note that an adequate guidance program could give children in poorer urban districts special assistance and individual attention; that counseling services help children overcome problems associated with unwanted pregnancies, drugs, crime, or unsupportive families; that both crisis counselors and career counselors from elementary school through high school may be needed to assist students to overcome obstacles and receive a worthwhile education. Alternative education programs for students identified as potential dropouts are suggested as necessary to motivate a substantial number of students in poorer urban districts. Several richer suburban districts provide individualized tutoring and vocational education to students in need of alternative education. However, in Jersey City, several alternative education programs were eliminated, and only a program for students in legal trouble is provided; Paterson conducted a ten-student pilot program in 1985-86, then cut it the next year because of lack of funds, although the district had identified 200 students in need. Such programs may be essential in many poorer urban districts. Other methods have been suggested for these poorer urban districts. For instance, an intensive pre-school and all-day kindergarten enrichment program to reverse the educational disadvantage these children start out with; recruitment of parents to join parent participation programs and become involved with the schools and their schoolchildren. [37] It seems agreed that local boards of education, administrators, and teachers organizations  all must join in this partnership for the benefit of these children if education in poorer urban districts is to succeed. In Robinson I we observed that the State may recognize ... a need for additional dollar input to equip classes of disadvantaged [students] for the educational opportunity. 62 N.J. at 520, 303 A. 2d 273 (footnote omitted). This reference to students' special needs was given added content in Abbott I where we observed that in some cases for disadvantaged students to receive a thorough and efficient education, the students will require above-average access to education resources and that this bears on the amount of money that a school district must be able to provide for its children. Abbott I, supra, 100 N.J. at 292, 495 A. 2d 376; see Robinson V, supra, 69 N.J. at 550, 355 A. 2d 129 (Pashman, J., dissenting). We identified the constitutional issue as being whether, after comparing the education received by children in property-poor districts to that offered in property-rich districts, it appears that the disadvantaged children will not be able to compete in, and contribute to, the society entered by the relatively advantaged children. Abbott I, supra, 100 N.J. at 296, 495 A. 2d 376. It is clear to us that in order to achieve the constitutional standard for the student from these poorer urban districts  the ability to function in that society entered by their relatively advantaged peers  the totality of the districts' educational offering must contain elements over and above those found in the affluent suburban district. If the educational fare of the seriously disadvantaged student is the same as the regular education given to the advantaged student, those serious disadvantages will not be addressed, and students in the poorer urban districts will simply not be able to compete. A thorough and efficient education requires such level of education as will enable all students to function as citizens and workers in the same society, and that necessarily means that in poorer urban districts something more must be added to the regular education in order to achieve the command of the Constitution. Such added help is in theory afforded now through categorical aid, consisting of additional funds to address special needs, aid for such things as compensatory education, bilingual education, education for students who are developmentally disabled, or visually handicapped. The problem, however, is that this categorical aid is added to a budget that is already significantly less than the comparable budgets of richer districts. When added to that regular budget of the poorer urban district, it fails to bring even equality of expenditure dollars between districts, and certainly does not provide the help needed to address these students' disadvantages. We realize our remedy here may fail to achieve the constitutional object, that no amount of money may be able to erase the impact of the socioeconomic factors that define and cause these pupils' disadvantages. We realize that perhaps nothing short of substantial social and economic change affecting housing, employment, child care, taxation, welfare will make the difference for these students; and that this kind of change is far beyond the power or responsibility of school districts. We have concluded, however, that even if not a cure, money will help, and that these students are constitutionally entitled to that help. If the claim is that additional funding will not enable the poorer urban districts to satisfy the thorough and efficient test, the constitutional answer is that they are entitled to pass or fail with at least the same amount of money as their competitors. If the claim is that these students simply cannot make it, the constitutional answer is, give them a chance. The Constitution does not tell them that since more money will not help, we will give them less; that because their needs cannot be fully met, they will not be met at all. It does not tell them they will get the minimum, because that is all they can benefit from. Like other states, we undoubtedly have some uneducable students, but in New Jersey there is no such thing as an uneducable district, not under our Constitution. All of the money that supports education is public money, local money no less than state money. It is authorized and controlled, in terms of source, amount, distribution, and use, by the State. The students of Newark and Trenton are no less citizens than their friends in Millburn and Princeton. They are entitled to be treated equally, to begin at the same starting line. Today the disadvantaged are doubly mistreated: first, by the accident of their environment and, second, by the disadvantage added by an inadequate education. The State has compounded the wrong and must right it.