Opinion ID: 2424209
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutional Guarantee of a Thorough and Efficient Education

Text: The rights guaranteed in the New Jersey Constitution do not rise and fall with popular opinion; they do not flourish in the best of times and perish in the worst of times. The framers of our constitutional charters made the courts the guarantors of those rights, even when it may not be fashionable to do so. We cannot escape our constitutional responsibilities. Judicial review requires the courts, from time to time, to sit in judgment of the acts of another branch of government. A core judicial function is to construe the meaning of the Constitution and to make meaningful the rights given our citizens by the Constitution. That is a key piece in the structural framework of a constitutional democracy. The drafters of the New Jersey Constitution made the provision of a public education a fundamental right. See Robinson IV, supra, 69 N.J. at 147, 351 A. 2d 713. The Constitution's Education Clause requires that [t]he Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years. N.J. Const. art. VIII, § 4, ¶ 1. For more than thirty years, this Court has ruled that the poorest and most vulnerable children of this State, those mostly living in financially strapped urban areas, have a right to a constitutionally adequate education. See Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 144, 971 A. 2d 989; Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473, 481, 303 A. 2d 273 (1973) ( Robinson I ). The litigation that bears the name Abbott v. Burke first came before this Court in the mid-1980s when children attending schools in Jersey City, Camden, East Orange, and Irvington filed suit, successfully challenging the constitutionality of the Public School Education Act of 1975. See Abbott v. Burke, 100 N.J. 269, 277-78 & n. 1, 495 A. 2d 376 (1985) ( Abbott I ). Over time, the Abbott litigation expanded to include children in 31 school districts who demanded a thorough and efficient education. See Abbott v. Burke, 196 N.J. 544, 555 n. 5, 960 A. 2d 360 (2008) ( Abbott XIX ). Decades of school-funding litigation led this Court to issue numerous remedial orders to enforce the constitutional rights of the pupils in the Abbott districts. Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 148, 971 A. 2d 989. But the rights of children outside the 31 Abbott school districtsalso poor and disadvantagedwere not addressed in the Abbott litigation because they were not involved in the case. That seemed unfair to many. In 2009, on motion by the State, this Court upheld the constitutionality of SFRAan Act designed[ ] as a state-wide unitary system of education funding to address the needs of at-risk children everywhere in the State, not just those in the Abbott districts. Id. at 147, 971 A. 2d 989. In doing so, we relieved the State of having to adhere to the remedial orders that provided special funding to the Abbott children. Id. at 175, 971 A. 2d 989. Indeed, the new Act abolished the designation of Abbott districts. See id. at 168-69, 971 A. 2d 989. This Court found SFRA constitutional premised on the expectation that the State [would] continue to provide school funding aid during this and the next two years at the levels required by SFRA's formula each year. Id. at 146, 971 A. 2d 989. The State committed that SFRA would enable schools to deliver the Core Curriculum Content Standards (sometimes referred to as CCCS) to their students and thus provide a thorough and efficient education. See id. at 170-71, 971 A. 2d 989. All three branches of government acknowledge that the benchmark for providing a thorough and efficient education is the teaching of the Core Curriculum Content Standards. See N.J.S.A. 18A:7F-44(q) (stating that students' access to a constitutional education [is] defined by the core curriculum standards); N.J.A.C. 6A:8-1.3 (stating that CCCS, as adopted by State Board of Education, are standards established for the provision of a thorough and efficient education pursuant to N.J.S.A. 18A:7F-4); Abbott XIX, supra, 196 N.J. at 562, 960 A. 2d 360 (stating that CCCS provide[ ] a constitutionally acceptable definition of a thorough and efficient education). The Core Curriculum Content Standards describe the knowledge and skills all New Jersey students are expected to acquire by benchmark grades. N.J.A.C. 6A:8-1.3. These standardsidentified by the State Board of Education, ibid. comprise nine academic areas: the visual and performing arts, comprehensive health and physical education, language arts literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, world languages, technological literacy, and 21st century life and careers. N.J.A.C. 6A:8-1.1(a)(1). The constitutionality of SFRA hinged on the State ensuring that the formula provide[d] those resources necessary for the delivery of State education standards across the State. Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 170, 971 A. 2d 989. Having found SFRA's funding formula constitutional, it appeared that this Court's long intercession in the school-funding controversies brought before us had come to an end. The following year, however, in balancing the budget, the Legislature enacted an appropriations bill that cut 1.601 billion dollars from the school-funding formula set forth in SFRA. The Education Law Center (ELC) then filed an action in aid of litigant's rights, seeking an order requiring the State to fund SFRA, as promised. The ELC argued that the short-funding of SFRA constituted a deprivation of the constitutional right to a thorough and efficient education to all at-risk children throughout the Statenot just Abbott children. The State countered that dire fiscal circumstancesone of the reasons it advanced for our holding SFRA constitutionalwas now a compelling reason not to fully fund the Act. After initially hearing oral argument on the ELC's motion, the Court decided that the record before it was inadequate to rule on so important an issue. Based on argument alone, without the presentation of facts, we could not assess whether the underfunding of SFRA violated the constitutional guarantee of a thorough and efficient education. We therefore remanded the matter to a Special Master, the Honorable Peter E. Doyne, A.J.S.C., to determine whether school funding through SFRA, at current levels, can provide for the constitutionally mandated thorough and efficient education for New Jersey school children. Our remand Order to Judge Doyne specifically noted: [T]he Court's determination that SFRA's funding formula was constitutional, on its face, [was] predicated on the express assumption that SFRA would be fully funded and adjusted as its terms prescribed, Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 170, 971 A. 2d 989. The remand Order further stated that, because our previous holding expressly was based on the assumption of full funding, see Abbott XX, supra, 196 [199] N.J. at 175 [971 A. 2d 989], the State must bear the burden of demonstrating that the present level of school funding distributed through the SFRA formula can provide for a thorough and efficient education as measured by the comprehensive core curriculum standards in districts with high, medium, and low concentrations of disadvantaged pupils. No school district was permitted to intervene in this action, although we did grant amicus-curiae status to a number of districts, including Piscataway and Montgomery Townships. [2] II.