Court Opinion

ID: 9751393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:23:41.698146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:43.768649
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
dissenting.
In its October 22, 2001 Order in this proceeding establishing a timetable for appeals of preschool program and budget decisions, the Court, by a 4-1 vote, declined to appoint a Special Master to resolve Abbott preschool disputes. Abbott v. Burke, No. M-1131 at 3 (N.J. Oct.22, 2001) (October Order). That determination was made prior to the gubernatorial election and substantially in advance of any notice from the parties concerning the prospect of cooperation between the Education Law Center (ELC) and the incoming administration.
Confirmation that such cooperation has begun and is continuing is one of the most positive developments in the long history of this litigation. If successful, that cooperation may significantly diminish the need for an efficient and effective procedure to resolve disputes. Nevertheless, the commencement of that cooperation in December 2001 and its continuation to date does not relieve the Court of its responsibility to decide — in its October Order and in this opinion — whether based on the record before it the ELC’s request for appointment of a Special Master should be granted. In my view the Court errs now, as it did in October, in declining the ELC’s request.
I
If we were writing on a clean slate, the Court’s failure to appoint a Special Master to hear and resolve all disputes arising in connection with implementation of preschool in the Abbott districts might be understandable. Even though this is the second time since our 1998 Order mandating preschool for all eligible *571three- and four-year olds in Abbott districts that the Court is required to intervene and significantly modify the State’s implementation of our Order, a fair-minded observer might assume, absent any other history, that the State deserves one more chance to comply on its own.
But the slate is not clean. This proceeding marks the fifteenth occasion in less than thirty years that the advocates of equal educational opportunity for poor urban school children have come to this Court to seek judicial relief from inadequate funding, deficient substantive educational programs and substandard facilities. A concise summary of the history of the Robinson v. Cahill and Abbott v. Burke school litigation through 1998 is set forth in Abbott v. Burke, 153 N.J. 480, 490-93, 710 A.2d 450 (1998) (Abbott V.) That summary reveals that in the course of this thirty-year old litigation four state statutes providing for state funding of public education have been held by this Court to be unconstitutional as applied to the poorest urban school districts: The State School Incentive Equalization Aid Law (L.1970 c. 234); The Public School Education Act of 1975 (L.1975, c. 212); The Quality Education Act of 1990 (L.1990, C. 52); The Comprehensive Educational Improvement and Financing Act (CEIFA) (L.1996, c. 1389). Each one of those statutes, enacted by the Legislature and signed by the then Governor, was found to be flawed by this Court because of a failure to provide a level of funding- “adequate to provide for the special educational needs of these poorer urban districts, and address their extreme disadvantages.” Abbott v. Burke, 119 N.J. 287, 385, 575 A.2d 359 (1990) (Abbott II).
That summary of the history of New Jersey’s urban public school litigation also reveals an unmistakable pattern of defiance by several Commissioners of Education of directives issued by this Court and by the Legislature, requiring the Department of Education (Department or DOE) to determine what special programs and services were necessary to enable schoolchildren in poor urban districts to achieve educational success. See Abbott II, supra, 119 N.J. at 294, 374, 386, 575 A.2d 359; Abbott v. Burke, *572136 N.J. 444, 453, 643 A.2d 575 (1994) (Abbott III) (“Moreover, although legislation was enacted specifically to require the Commissioner, in accordance with our holding in Abbott, to undertake a study of the programs and services to be implemented for disadvantaged students, including their costs ... L. 1991, c. 259, § 2, that study apparently has not been completed.”).
That pattern of noncompliance was perpetuated in CEIFA, passed by the Legislature in 1996. In Abbott v. Burke, 149 N.J. 145, 693 A.2d 417 (1997) (Abbott IV), we held unconstitutional as applied to the Abbott districts the two supplemental aid programs authorized by CEIFA, Demonstrably Effective Program Aid (DEPA), N.J.S.A. 18A.-7F-18 (providing $300 to $425 per pupil), and Early Childhood Program Aid (ECPA), N.J.S.A. 18A:7F-16 (providing $465 to $750 per pupil), because the State failed to demonstrate that the per-pupil funding amounts were sufficient to meet the students’ actual needs. We stated:
The State contends that experts were involved in formulating the amounts of DEPA and ECPA and that the Court should defer to their determinations. Children in the special needs districts have been waiting more than two decades for a constitutionally sufficient educational opportunity. We are unwilling, therefore, to accede to putative expert opinion that does not disclose the reasons or bases for its conclusions. We have ordered the State to study the special educational needs of students in the SNDs. That has not been done. We also have ordered the State to determine the costs associated with implementing the needed programs. Those studies have not occurred. Without studies of actual needs, it is unclear how a sound program providing for those needs has been accomplished.
The State has failed to demonstrate a basis for the per-pupil amounts for supplemental programs, and we thus cannot accept the proposition that the DEPA and ECPA per-pupil amounts will enable the SNDs to implement preschool, fall-day kindergarten, and other constitutionally required programs.
[Abbott IV, supra, 149 N.J. at 185-86, 693 A.2d 417.]
That incontestable thirty-year record of legislative and executive branch unwillingness to address the deficiencies in urban education frames the issues presently before the Court. No one who has served in the executive or legislative branches during these past three decades could dispute the fact that legislatures dominated by suburban legislators often have impeded efforts by advocates of urban education to improve funding, programs, and *573facilities in urban schools. Finally, after almost five decades of neglect of urban school systems that once were among this State’s premier public school programs, the State, by order of this Court, is providing funding to urban schools comparable to that expended by the wealthiest suburban communities, and equally important, is in the process of implementing preschool for three- and four-year olds, full day kindergarten, and whole school reform. With adequate funding and successful implementation of high-quality preschool and kindergarten programs, the poorest urban districts, after decades of neglect, finally will have the basic tools necessary to deliver a “thorough and efficient” education to their students. Although in Abbott V we did not squarely rest the State’s obligation to provide preschool to poor urban children on the Constitutional imperative of a thorough and efficient education, we left no room for doubt about the irrefutable connection: “[B]ecause the absence of such early educational intervention deleteriously undermines educational performance once the child enters public school, the provision of preschool education also has strong constitutional underpinning.” Abbott V, supra, 153 N.J. at 507, 710 A.2d 450.
Sadly, the record now before us informs us that the historic pattern of delay and neglect persists, this time in the flawed implementation of the preschool programs ordered by this Court in 1998. In the Office of Administrative Law proceeding before Chief Judge Masin, the parties disputed whether enrollment was at forty-seven percent of eligible students as certified by Dr. Barnett, or slightly in excess of fifty percent as claimed by the Department. In either ease, progress in implementing preschool is unacceptably slow. In Abbott IV we observed that “[d]elaying implementation [of preschool] until 2001” constitutes “a glaring weakness” in CEIFA because that delay “means that four more classes of disadvantaged children will miss out on programs virtually essential to future educational success.” 149 N.J. at 183-84, 693 A.2d 417. If in 1997 we considered delaying preschool until 2001 to be “a glaring weakness,” then the continued delay *574revealed by this record in providing preschool for the thousands of unserved children is even less tolerable today.
The administrative appeal process retained by the Court’s opinion, ante at 541-45, 790 A.2d at 845-47, is poorly designed to address and resolve expeditiously the kinds of disputes that have arisen and that will continue to obstruct preschool implementation. The Court’s opinion concedes, as it must, ante at 543, 790 A.2d at 846, that “on the question of timely disposition, the record is dismal.” The processes of the Office of Administrative Law and the Commissioner, although appropriate in routine contested matters, are not well suited for managing, mediating, and expeditiously resolving the variety and scale of controversies that are impeding an effective pre-school program. A Special Master, broadly empowered by the Court, would contribute expertise, objectivity, speed and pragmatism to the dispute resolution process.
Without a Special Master, resolution of the recurring disputes affecting implementation of preschool may continue to frustrate and obstruct achievement of this essential program for thousands of eligible but unserved children. The recent expression of anticipated cooperation between the ELC and the incoming administration is a most encouraging development in the thirty-year-old struggle for educational adequacy in our urban districts, but even a cooperative effort does not assure that disputes will be efficiently and fully resolved. Instead of asserting its historic institutional role by designating a Special Master to monitor and resolve disputes quickly and effectively, the Court passively allows further obstruction and delay by remitting the parties to an adjudicative process that has failed during the past three years and will not work in the future.
II
A review of the issues before the Court on this appeal underscores the breadth and difficulty of the disputes that presently *575impede full implementation of preschool. I address those issues in the approximate order of their complexity.
A. Facilities
The Court allocates a few pages of its opinion to the issue of preschool facilities, ante at 559-62, 790 A.2d at 856-57, but its discussion of the issue does not explain or attempt to address the extreme frustration that some districts have experienced because of the State’s apparent mishandling of districts’ facilities needs. The Department itself recognizes, according to the certification of Assistant Commissioner Fairweather, dated June 19, 2001, that “the biggest obstacle to meeting the State’s goal of providing a full-day, full-year preschool program to all eligible students in the 2001-2002 school year is the lack of available facilities in some of the Abbott districts.” Excerpts from certifications filed by the Presidents of the Passaic and Elizabeth Boards of Education explain the seriousness of facilities problems encountered by some districts.
Nancy Everett, President of the Passaic Board of Education, a District with a waiting list as of September 20, 2001 of 775 children because of insufficient facilities, stated as follows:
The Passaic Board of Education has, since the Abbott V decision in 1998, sought funding in every school year for a high quality pre-school program in adequate facilities for all three and four year olds in Passaic.
I submit this Certification to inform the Court of the sense of considerable frustration the Passaic Board has experienced over the past three years because of the Department of Education’s repeated failure to provide this District with the funding and facilities necessary to provide the pre-school program needed by our three and four year olds.
The Board members are the ones who are in the front lines of Abbott pre-school implementation, and we are the ones who receive calls from parents who do not understand why their children have been placed on a waiting list rather than in a pre-school educational program. Although we try to explain to the parents that the District’s inability to provide the needed program is a result of inadequate State funding and the Department’s unresponsiveness to our request for facilities, these parents feel deceived by the Passaic Board even though we have no control over the Department’s actions.
Many parents do not even believe that a pre-school program exists in Passaic because their children have never been able to participate in it. Others feel totally discouraged by the lack of any program for their children and have lost confidence *576in the Board and our public school system. They question why they should even bother registering for a program that is seemingly non-existent for large numbers of children. This is very troubling for the Board members, who seek to improve and inspire confidence in our public education system and to draw more students for longer period of time into our public schools.
This Board further believes that thousands of eligible three and four year olds [ ] have already lost the opportunity for Abbott quality pre-school programs in this District. Any further delay in full implementation of this Court’s decisions will result in future generations of pre-schoolers being deprived of the pre-school education they clearly need to make them ready to enter our public schools.
The Board does not feel that temporary classroom units, or trailers, are an appropriate educational facility. However, we have felt compelled to accept them because the Department has left us with no alternative due to its failure to provide adequate funding for suitable pre-school facilities in Passaic.
Jim Ford, President of the Elizabeth Board of Education, whose preschool waiting list was 966 children on September 17, 2001, certified:
The Elizabeth Board of Education was so frustrated by the Department of Education’s failure to provide the District with needed pre-school facilities that we decided on our own in July 2000 to fund through our local taxpayers the lease and renovation of a former Rickels site for use as a pre-school facility.
This project is one of many that the District could have [] undertaken and completed by the commencement of the 2001-02 school year if we had received adequate funding and support from the Department of Education in response to ora- repeated requests from 1998 until now. Unfortunately, we did not receive the requested approval or funding for adequate temporary and permanent facilities and, as a result, we opened the 2001-02 school year without adequate spaces to provide pre-school for all three and four year olds in the District. In fact, as of September 17, 2001, the District has a waiting list of 966 pre-school age children.
... [T]he Elizabeth Board of Education acknowledged in the Fall of 2000 that the District would be willing to site trailers in the District for the 2001-02 school year. We did so reluctantly because of our serious concerns about the impact on the school district of the siting on school property or in the City of the large number of trailers that would be needed to provide classroom space for all eligible preschoolers.
Our willingness to do so was based on the understanding that the State would provide the District with the needed number of trailers to house all eligible preschoolers and that those trailers would be installed and ready for occupancy by September 2001.
In late July 2001, the District was advised by the Department of Education and the Economic Development Authority that the State could not assure us that the *577District would receive more than 52 trailers, or temporary classroom units (“TCUs”) as the State now calls them, even though we had indicated that the District needed over 150 TCUs to provide classroom spaces for all eligible three and four year olds. In addition, we were advised that the 52 TCUs allotted to the District would not be ready for occupancy until November 2001, at the earliest, even though we had been repeatedly assured until then that the TCUs would be ready by September 1, 2001.
While the State currently anticipates that those TCUs could be completed and occupied by November 1, 2001, we have no reason to believe, based on our own experience and the experience of other Abbott districts, that those commitments will be fulfilled.
The State has also failed during the past several months to address any of the critical health and safety facilities projects in the District that the State promised to undertake during this past summer. As a result, these projects, if they are even undertaken at this point, could disrupt ongoing educational activities in the District during the school year.
For the past several years, the Elizabeth Board of Education has sought to address the needs of our disadvantaged children in accordance with our understanding of this Court’s mandates in the Abbott v. Burke decisions. However, we have been totally frustrated because the Department of Education and the Economic Development Authority have been unresponsive to our requests or have outright refused to take the necessary immediate action, besides the belated and inadequate number of TCUs, to provide the District with critically-needed temporary and permanent pre-school facilities.
Although the boards of education in the Abbott districts are completely at the mercy of the Department in implementing the Abbott pre-school mandates, we are the ones who must face public anger when children have been placed on a waiting list, as we have had to do in Elizabeth, rather than in a pre-school educational program. Although we try to explain to the parents that the District’s inability to provide the needed program is a result of inadequate State funding and the Department’s unresponsiveness to our request for facilities, these parents feel deceived by the Elizabeth Board of Education and the District even though we have no control over the Department’s inaction and unresponsiveness.
Unless the Court grants immediate relief, including ensuring regular judicial supervision of the State’s future implementation of pre-school, the Elizabeth Board of Education believes there is no reasonable likelihood that the State will undertake expedited construction of temporary and permanent pre-school facilities; there is no reasonable likelihood that the State will commence needed health and safety projects in the near future; and there is no reasonable likelihood that this District will be able to provide well-planned, high quality pre-school for all eligible three and four year olds in this school year or at any time in the foreseeable future. (Emphasis added.)
In Abbott V, supra, decided by this Court on May 21, 1998, we directed the Department to provide funding to any District that *578had adequate facilities and staff to begin preschool in September 1998 and ordered the Department to ensure that all Abbott districts had the “resources and additional funds that are necessary to implement pre-school education by the commencement of the 1992-2000 school year.” 153 N.J. at 508, 710 A.2d 450. Recognizing the obstacles posed by the need for more classroom space, we directed the Commissioner, “[w]hile awaiting construction or renovation of the necessary facilities,” to “make use of trailers, rental space, or cooperative enterprises with the private sector.” Id. at 524, 710 A.2d 450. We noted that “[t]he State has indicated that it is prepared to move immediately to ensure the availability of adequate temporary facilities to implement preschool ... in all Abbott schools by the beginning of the 1999-2000 school year.” Id. at 524-25, 710 A.2d 450.
Fairly read, this record indicates that the Department has neither provided nor funded any additional preschool facilities for the 1999-2000 or 2000-2001 school years, a failure described as “regrettable” by Acting Chief Judge Masin. See In re: Abbott Global Issues No. EDU 8246-01, 2001 at 55 (OAL Initial Decision). See also Letter, March 22, 2001, Education Law Center to Attorney General John Farmer (“[T]hree years since Abbott V and one year after Abbott VI, the DOE has yet to provide the Abbott districts with any temporary or permanent pre-school facilities.”)
The record contains no explanation for the Department of Education’s inaction concerning provision of temporary facilities for the past two school years other than the fact that the Legislature on July 18, 2000 enacted the Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act (EFCFA), N.J.S.A. 18A:7G-1 to -44, pursuant to which all Abbott district “school facilities projects],” including construction of either district or community provider preschool facilities, N.J.S.A 18A:7G-3, are to be constructed and financed by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. N.J.S.A. 18A:7G-5. Perhaps the pending enactment of the EFCFA, the Department’s initial failure to adhere to the fifteen child class size limits for preschool, see Abbott v. Burke, 163 N.J. *57995,112-14, 748 A.2d 82 (2000) Abbott VI, and the September 2001 deadline for full-day preschool for all Abbott three- and four-year olds contributed to the Department of Education’s delay in addressing facilities needs. But this record demonstrates clearly and convincingly, with virtually no contest by the State, that the Department’s neglect of the Abbott facilities problem materially has hindered full availability of preschool.
Certifications in this record by Abbott district superintendents graphically describe the effect on preschool enrollment of the Department of Education’s neglect of and inattention to facilities needs. Dr. Robert Holster, the Passaic Superintendent, certified on December 22, 2000:
Since February 1999, the District has advised the Department of the District’s critical need for additional pre-school facilities to provide spaces for all eligible three and four year olds in pre-school educational programs sought by the District to meet the needs of our pre-school population. The District also advised the Department that the District would not be able to serve all eligible three and four year olds without programmatic approval and sufficient funding for additional facilities. The District repeatedly emphasized the compelling need for the Department to act immediately on the District’s pre-school facilities needs or else the District would not have adequate facilities in place to provide spaces for all of the District’s eligible three and four year olds in 1999-2000, 2000-2001, or in any subsequent school year.
As a result of the lack of approval of, and funding for, adequate pre-school facilities, the District has been unable to offer a pre-school education program for all eligible three and four year olds in the District. The District presently does not know when, if ever, it will be provided with the necessary funding for facilities to serve all eligible pre-schoolers.
As a result of the lack of available space in community providers and the failure of the Department to take timely steps to provide funding to address the lack of adequate pre-school facilities in the District, the District, during the 2000-2001 school year, has only been able to serve approximately 403 of the 1231 eligible three year olds (or about 33%) and 584 of the 1231 eligible four year olds (or about 47%). Because of the lack of funding for adequate pre-school facilities, despite the Department’s awareness of this District’s need for such facilities since February 1999, the District has not been able to provide pre-school educational programs for all eligible three and four year olds in the District, as required by the Abbott VI decision.
Similarly, on June 12, 2001, Dr. Holster certified:
*580For the 2001-02 school year, the District has sought to implement full-day, full year pre-school for three and four year olds. Howevei', as I explain in this Certification, I have been unable to engage in aggressive recruitment and outreach to enroll all eligible three and four year olds because the District does not have adequate permanent and temporary classrooms at the present time — in districts operated and community provider programs — and I seriously doubt whether the District will have adequate facilities in place by the beginning of the 2001-02 school year.
In our plans and correspondence, the District has repeatedly emphasized the compelling need for the DOE to act immediately on the district’s pre-school facilities needs or else the District would not have adequate facilities in place to provide pre-school programs for all eligible three and four year olds.
Throughout the past three years, the DOE either ignored or inadequately addressed our critical need for additional temporary and permanent facilities. As a result, the District was not able to undertake the lease, purchase or renovation of several additional sites identified by the District for its pre-school program over the past few years.
It has been our experience that there is a gap of [] eight to twelve months between the time the District received approval and funding for pre-school facilities and the time those facilities can be leased and renovated, or constructed, for preschool classrooms. Therefore, at the present time, the Passaic School District will most likely not have any permanent pre-school facilities in place for the 2001-02 school year and, unless the DOE and EDA expedite the construction process, we are not likely to have any permanent pre-school facilities in place by the beginning of the 2002-03 school year-. Also, if we elect to challenge the DOE’s decisions in the administrative process, the DOE effectively drags these proceedings out so far into the school year that, by the time we either settle or succeed, it’s too late in the school year to actually implement the program we were able to secure through the appeal The current delays in decision making and the appeals process are a serious hurdle for the District to overcome in making sure we secure what our children need
Although the EDA has advised the District in April 2001 that it ordered 88 temporary' classroom units (“TCUs”), or trailers, as temporary facilities for preschool during the 2001-02 school year, the District has no idea at the present time when these TCUs will actually be delivered or whether they will be in place by September 2001. In addition, the District has been unable to locate available space in Passaic for more than approximately 50 of the trailers the EDA has ordered for the District. The DOE’s and the EDA’s belated actions to provide some temporary facilities for the 2001-02 school year has left us with little time to figure out where to place trailers in Passaic’s limited vacant lots.
As a result of the DOE’s failure to approve and fund adequate pre-school facilities, the District will not be able to offer a full day, full year pre-school program for all eligible three and four year olds in Passaic. In fact, I currently believe that the District might have to turn away more than 1,000 preschoolers this *581fall, because of the delays and failures in DOE’s implementation of this Court’s pre-school requirements in Passaic.
On June 14, 2001, in a supplemental certification, Dr. Holster observes that in its June 12, 2000 decision approving Passaic’s operational plan for preschool and kindergarten for 2001-02, the DOE erroneously determined that over 1000 preschool and kindergarten children were to be served at facilities in Passaic that either did not exist or had not been authorized:
I am more convinced than ever, after receiving the DOE’s decision that the District is facing a serious crisis this school year and that this District will be unable to provide pre-school education for hundreds, if not thousands, of eligible three and four year olds. I am also not able to understand how the DOE could have issued such a decision, because significant statements in the DOE decision are directly contrary to information we have submitted to the DOE.
The most glaring examples of the problems with the DOE decision are found in statements relating to: (1) pre-school classrooms at Schools #3, #6, and # 7 for 375 three year olds and for 465 four year olds (DOE decision at 2 and 7); and (2) seven TCU classrooms at St. Mary’s for approximately 105 children (DOE decision 3)(The Department had previously advised the District that 9 TCUs would be sited there.) The Doe decision also states that a substantial number of kindergarten children will be served in 2001-02 at a facility on Henry St. (DOE decision at 11).
We have sought for approximately two years to obtain DOE approval for additions at Schools #3, #6, and # 7 for pre-school classrooms. The DOE only recently approved the District’s request and the entire project is in the early post-approval stage. Construction has not even commenced, and there is no possibility that these additions will be in place by September 2001. In fact, at the rate the DOE and EDA are proceeding on these additions, it is very likely that they will not even be ready for the 2002-03 school year. Therefore, the DOE decision approved spaces that don’t presently exist (and will not likely exist in the next year), and there is no other capacity in district-operated or community provider programs to serve the 810 three and four year olds projected by the DOE decision for Schools # 8, # 6, and # 7.
For approximately one year, the District has also unsuccessfully sought approval from the Department to lease and renovate classroom facilities at St. Mary’s to serve as temporary facilities for pre-school classrooms. Despite our best efforts, the DOE failed to act on this request.
Not only did the District lose the opportunity to obtain those additional preschool classrooms as a result of the Department’s unresponsiveness and delays, but also the District has no assurance at the present time that it will be able to use the St. Mary’s site for the 7(or 9) TCUs projected by the DOE decision to be placed there. Consequently, the DOE decision approves classroom spaces at St. Mary’s that don’t exist, and there may not be space available to the District to site the TCUs for the 2001-02 school year. There is no other capacity in district-operated *582or community provider programs to serve the 105 preschoolers projected by the DOE decision for St. Mail’s.
Although not directly relevant to the pre-school issues before the Court, it is worthy of note that the DOE decision also approves kindergarten classes at Henry St. when classrooms at that property are not likely to be available to the District by September 2001. For approximately two years, we have unsuccessfully sought funding to enter into a lease agreement to renovate the Henry St. site for temporary pre-school and kindergarten classrooms. In December 2000, the District was advised by the Department that the Economic Development Authority (“EDA”) would take over the negotiations for the lease of the Henry St. property. I have recently been advised by the Department that the matter has been forwarded to the EDA for land acquisition, but I do not know when, if at all, that property will be acquired. Thereforee, it is impossible to have that facility ready for any students, either kindergarten or pre-school, by September 2001 or at any time in the 2001-02 school year.
It is most troubling to me that the Department failed to take timely action on our repeated requests over the past two years for the above permanent and temporary facilities for pre-school classrooms. Yet, the Department has issued a decision that relies on the placement of children in classrooms in these same facilities that do not now exist and are not likely to exist in the near future.
The DOE decision creates the illusion that this District will be able to operate a pre-school education program in 2001-02 for large numbers of three and four year olds. The truth is that because the department has not provided the necessary approval of, or adequate funding for, facilities over the past few years, the Passaic School District will have a substantial number of preschoolers on a waiting list or denied programs altogether during the 2001-02 school year.
[ (Emphasis added).]
On September 20, 2001, in Dr. Holster’s second supplemental certification, he observes that because of Passaic’s waiting list of 775 children and the non-delivery of temporary classroom units, Passaic was forced to seek a waiver that would defer full day preschool for that number of three year olds that Passaic lacked capacity to serve. He stated:
The District currently has a waiting list of 775 three and four year olds because of the lack of adequate temporary and permanent pre-school facilities in the District. My staff also believes there are countless others whose parents were forced to seek alternative arrangements for their three and four year olds after it became obvious that the District did not have adequate facilities to provide preschool for all eligible three and four year olds this school year.
The only measures to provide additional temporary facilities for the District’s pre-school program during the 2001-02 school year have been connected with the Department’s and the Economic Development Authority’s (“EDA”) plan to provide *583temporary classroom units (“TCUs”) for the District. The District was initially provided with a schedule by the EDA indicating that any needed TCUs would be installed and ready for occupancy by September 1, 2001. . . .
Although the District advised the Department and the EDA that it would need approximately 88 TCUs by the beginning of the 2001-02 school year, we have only been provided with 15 TCUs to date. These TCUs are still under construction and are not yet ready for occupancy. We are hopeful that these 15 TCUs will be ready for occupancy within the next few weeks.
As a result of various developments over the past few weeks relating to the TCUs, the District currently does not know the definite time line for the delivery of additional TCUs to the District or the number of additional TCUs that will be available for the 2001-02 school year. This has placed in doubt our ability to implement the schedule in our contingency plan for the 2001-02 school year, which I discuss below and which was submitted at a time when we understood that the remaining TCUs would be delivered and installed within the next few months.
In light of the evident problems facing the District in August 2001, when it became obvious that the EDA would not have the needed TCUs delivered and installed by the promised date, the District engaged in discussions with the Department about a contingency plan to address the pre-school facilities shortage during the 2001-02 school year. . . .
On August 31, 2001, the District’s contingency plan was approved by the Commissioner of Education. The Department quite correctly notes in the attachments to the August 31 letter that there is a shortage of facilities for the 2001-02 school year and that, as a result, hundreds of children would be unhoused. However, the Department fails to address the fact that the District had advised the Department for years of the critical need for pre-school facilities. Nor does the Department acknowledge that the current unfortunate situation is a direct result of the Department’s repeated failure, as discussed in this Second Supplemental Certification, and the other certifications I have submitted to the Court, to respond in a timely or appropriate fashion to the District’s numerous specific pre-school facilities proposals over the past three years.
Significantly, the Department has neither denied nor responded to Dr. Holster’s allegations.
Complaints similar to those expressed by Dr. Holster are contained in certifications submitted by the Superintendents of the Elizabeth and Perth Amboy districts. Although the details are different, those certifications also demonstrate with graphic specificity that the DOE has seriously neglected the facilities needs in those districts. Elizabeth also has been granted a waiver of its *584obligation to provide full day preschool to all eligible three- and four-year olds because of a lack of facilities.
As did Chief Judge Masin, OAL Initial Decision at 56, the Court’s opinion anticipates that future disputes concerning facilities will be resolved through the administrative hearing process on a case by case basis. Ante at 560, 790 A.2d at 856. As the record demonstrates, facilities issues require expeditious resolution so that districts know their capacity and can plan enrollment based on capacity. The Court’s October Order, ante at 541, 790 A.2d at 845, provides an expedited review process only for budget and program issues, but does not and cannot accommodate review of facilities disputes because of their unpredictability. A Special Master with broad authority obviously would facilitate prompt resolution of such disputes. As is apparent from the frustration expressed by Board Presidents and Superintendents in this record, the State’s interest in implementing preschool effectively is not well served by the misunderstandings generated by lingering and unresolved disputes over facilities needs. A Special Master, possessing a firm grasp of the issues and the authority both to mediate and adjudicate individual district complaints, would far better serve the needs and interests of both the districts and the Department than would the flawed and dilatory administrative review process designated by the Court.
B. Head Start
The Department’s refusal to allow the districts to enter into contracts with and provide funding for Head Start centers servicing in excess of 8000 preschool age children in Abbott districts is bewildering and inexplicable. In Abbott VI, supra, the Court was informed that the State was excluding Head Start children from the mandatory Abbott preschool program. The Court specifically held that Head Start children could not be excluded from preschool unless the Head Start programs themselves were equivalent to DOE preschool standards, a condition that none of the Head Start programs met at that time. 163 N.J. at 116-17, 748 A.2d 82. Today, the Court again orders the State to include *585children attending federally funded Head Start centers in the Abbott preschool program “unless the cost of doing so is demonstrably more expensive than other high-quality alternatives,” ante at 555, 790 A.2d at 583, but the Court again provides no mechanism for a remedy if the State persists in its incomprehensible refusal to negotiate adequate funding for these Head Start children.
The relevant facts concerning Head Start are much easier to understand than is the DOE’s decision to deny funding to the Head Start programs. Head Start centers provide early childhood services for approximately 14,500 predominantly minority three- and four-year olds in forty New Jersey municipalities. Head Start programs service all thirty Abbott districts and include over 8000 children in those districts, or approximately fifteen percent of the total number of children eligible for preschool in Abbott Districts, according to the DOE’s calculations.
Federal funding for Head Start serviced children in the current school year is about $7100 per child. However, federal regulations require that Head Start funded agencies provide a wide variety of services for enrolled children including nutrition, social services, health and mental health, and transportation. Children enrolled in Head Start programs undergo a comprehensive screening process that includes evaluations of vision, speech, hearing and nutrition. Accordingly, only a portion of the $7100 per child federal funding would be available to pay for the high quality Abbott preschool program mandated to be available to all eligible children in the Abbott districts.
The Department’s funding proposal for federally funded Head Start centers that were prepared to meet Abbott preschool substantive standards, including class size, teacher certification, and a ten-hour day (six hours of educational programs plus four hours of day care), 245 days per year, is — to put it mildly — perplexing. The Department offered to pay the difference between the Head Start agency’s federal funding per child ($7100) and $9000 for classes with non-certified teachers or $10,000 for classes with *586certified teachers — a net cost to the State of $2000 to $3000 per child. Predictably, virtually all of the Abbott district Head Start centers rejected that proposal, explaining that the available portion of the federal funds, after providing the federally mandated services, combined with the proposed State funding, was not adequate to pay for a high quality Abbott preschool program. The President of the New Jersey Head Start Association certified that when Head Start explained the impossibility of participation in Abbott preschool under the State’s proposal, State officials asserted that Head Start agencies would be excluded from the program and the children serviced by the Head Start centers would be enrolled in district operated preschool classes.
The Court is informed that none of the Abbott districts have included proposed budgets designed to serve federally funded Head Start children in the 2001-02 preschool submissions to the Department. The record also contains evidence that the State’s intransigence concerning funding has resulted in declining enrollment at Head Start centers because children are being solicited to participate in District operated programs. In addition, Head Start centers report substantial numbers of teacher and social worker resignations resulting from higher salaries available in District preschool programs.
Chief Judge Masin, in the OAL preceeding, clearly understood the indefensibility of the Department’s position when he concluded that “it is not possible to find that the DOE has acted in a reasonable and compliant manner.” OAL Initial Decision at 47 (emphasis added). Chief Judge Masin recognized that by refusing to offer Head Start agencies more than $3000 over their federal funding per pupil, the State was committing itself to pay at least $9000 per pupil, if not more, to provide District operated preschool. He observed that
the Department violates both judicial intent and the regulatory spirit if it refuses to provide appropriate required levels of adequate funding, funding based on particularized need, to deficient but willing Head Start programs and thereby requires districts to duplicate the Head Start programs to the extent that they will have to provide not only the additional aspects of the deficient program, but also those *587aspects that fall short of Abbott requirements, but are nevertheless a proper part of a preschool program.

[Ibid.]

As noted, the Court sides with Head Start, but its disposition leaves Head Start with no practical mechanism for enforcing the Court’s ruling. The Court correctly recognizes that the 8000 Head Start children should not be excluded from Abbott preschool programs, and requires that “districts should utilize Head Start providers unless they are not ‘able and willing to comply’ with Abbott preschool standards, or unless the cost of doing so is demonstrably more expensive than other high-quality alternatives.” Ante at 585, 790 A.2d at 873. But in implementing its holding, the Court outlines a standard that will require individualized evaluations of each Abbott Head Start center’s funding needs, without providing an efficient and reliable procedure for resolving disputes or adverse decisions. The Court states:
The districts must develop budget proposals based on a careful analysis of a providers’ pre-existing obligations and funding sources. The DOE need not offer additional funding for services designed to meet federal regulations or duplicate funding for services paid for by the federal government. Rather, reasonable supplemental funds must be provided so that Head Start (and other community providers if applicable) can meet the more demanding state pre-school standards.

[ibid]

Significantly, neither the New Jersey Head Start Association, participating as amicus curiae, nor any Head Start agencies are parties to this litigation and the districts, under the Department’s supervision, have been ordered not to contract with Head Start providers. Therefore, no mechanism presently exists for enforcing the Court’s holding.
Consistent with its determination that Abbott preschool funding disputes are to be resolved pursuant to the administrative appeal process, ante at 571, 790 A.2d at 862-63, the Court could order that any dispute between a district and a Head Start provider that is aggrieved by a preschool funding authorization issued to an Abbott district may qualify for review directly by means of that administrative process. In my view, however, that review proce*588dure will be cumbersome, protracted, and far less effective for the districts, the Head Start providers and the State than would be an adjudication, if other dispute resolution initiatives were unsuccessful, by a Special Master whose authority and expertise would be well suited to resolve these intricate and agency specific funding disputes. The Court should not forget that the DOE ignored its mandate in Abbott VI that children in Head Start programs not meeting DOE standards could not be excluded from Abbott preschool programs. It now must provide a quick and effective procedure to implement today’s reiteration of its prior holding that the State has a duty to fund Abbott preschool services in federally funded Head Start agencies.
C. Funding and Educational Quality
In view of the magnitude and scope of the problems concerning preschool funding and educational quality revealed by this record, the Court may be overconfident when it observes “that certain of the relief sought in this litigation has been provided by the Commissioner as a result of the administrative process.” Ante at 562, 790 A.2d at 857-58.
Only two years ago this Court found to be inadequate, and inconsistent with the Commissioner’s representations, the manner in which the Department was implementing this Court’s order concerning high-quality preschool. Abbott IV, supra, 163 N.J. at 101, 748 A.2d 82. Although the Court generously attributed the “discrepancies” to “misunderstandings,” id. at 100-01, 748 A.2d 82, we stated clearly that daycare standards would not satisfy the Abbott preschool mandate:
We conclude that the DOE’s use of community care providers staffed by uncertified teachers and governed by Department of Human Services (DHS) daycare standards violates the Abbott V requirement to establish quality preschool programs for three- and four-year old children. Our intervention is warranted now to assure that the implementation of preschool in the Abbott districts is faithful to the programs proposed by the Commissioner and accepted by this Court less than two years ago.
[163 N.J. at 101, 748 A.2d 82.]
*589In Abbott VI, the Court also lamented the adversarial relationship between the ELC and the Department, describing it as plagued by “suspicion and distrust. ” Id. at 120, 748 A.2d 82. The Court noted that, in contrast, the coalition of educators and community care providers developed by the Association for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) “demonstrat[ed]” the value of collaboration and consensus building. Ibid.
The Court’s acknowledgment of the ACNJ’s objectivity and impartiality gives added weight to the ACNJ’s forceful and comprehensive criticism of the DOE’s preschool implementation efforts in its amicus brief to this Court:
Since ACNJ’s last appearance before the Court, the Coalition’s focus has shifted from developing appropriate early childhood program standards to monitoring implementation of the dear mandates articulated by the Court in Abbott VI.
... While the State has made some progress in moving toward the program standards required by the Court, its progress has not been sufficient to meet the mandated quality required by the Court with the time frames articulated in Abbott VI After careful assessment, ACNJ believes that the State’s failure is not simply a matter of experiencing difficulty in meeting new standards within expedited time frames, but instead reflects a fundamental and continued failure on the part of the State to meet the clear and unambiguous standards required by the Court.
Despite the Court's hope for a “cooperative effort focused on the provision of high quality preschool programs” the State continues to approach program implementation in a piecemeal fashion____ Critical barriers remain to meeting the Court’s standards in all [areas]: curriculum, teacher preparation, facilities, contracting with community providers, enrollment and outreach. Fundamental questions of responsibility remain unresolved, particularly between the Departments of Education (DOE) and Human Services (DHS) and the Economic Development Authority (EDA). These agencies have been ineffective in coordinating their efforts, leaving the school districts with insufficient guidance as to how to proceed on nearly every issue of implementation____ Program funding continues to be based on what the State is willing to pay, rather than on what children need. In short, the State’ efforts since Abbott VI have been too little, too late, and too disjointed to meet the standards ordered by the Court fifteen months ago.
... The result of the State’s approach to preschool implementation is what ACNJ feared when it last appeared before the Court: a two-tiered system of program quality between the school-based and community-based programs within districts. This two-tiered system fails to provide children with the equal educational opportunity that the Court envisioned and that the children deserve.
Although Abbott V was decided in May 1998, no substantive educational standards for Abbott preschool programs had been *590adopted by the Department as of March 7, 2000, the date we decided Abbott VI. The Court admonished the Commissioner about the delay, observing discretely that “more concrete guidance for [the current] school year would have been preferable.” Abbott VI, supra, 163 N.J. at 107, 748 A.2d 82. We ordered substantive standards to be adopted by April 2000, explaining:
Without adequate standards the DOB will be unable to evaluate preschool programs or to prevent the development of a two-tiered system in which one group of children is offered daycare and another group is offered high-quality preschool----
Substantive educational guidance for all Abbott district preschool programs is an essential component of DOE’s commitment to the Abbott districts and must be adopted by April 17, 2000, so that the districts will be able to prepare for the 2000-2001 school year-.
[Abbott VI, supra, 163 N.J. at 107, 748 A.2d 82.]
In response, the Department adopted a document entitled “Early Childhood Education Program Expectations: Standards of Quality” (Expectations) that, according to the Court, “outline[s] the goals of preschool education without, however, specifying the details of a curriculum aimed at achieving the desired results.” Ante at 547, 790 A.2d at 879. Other characterizations of the Expectations are less generous than that of the Court. Cecelia Zalkind, Executive Director of ACNJ, stated in her June 15, 2001 certification:
ACNJ has followed with great interest the development of expectations for preschool programs developed by the Department with the assistance of the Task Force convened last summer. While we believe that the expectations are an important first step, they do not provide the more specific program standards necessary to guide program implementation____
Our concern is that in view of the April 17 deadline set by the Court to establish clear program standards, the Department will simply refer to these expectations. In our view, the expectations are insufficient for this purpose. They need to be far more specific and directive. While they are an appropriate articulation of program goals, they must take the next step in terms of specificity to become the standards that the Court envisions in its opinion.
Dr. William Barnett, a professor in the Rutgers Graduate School of Education and Director of the Rutgers Center for Early Education Research, was even more critical of the DOE’s Expectations document in his certification dated December 20, 2000:
*591(a) the document does not constitute substantive educational guidance or program standards to enable districts and community-based providers to implement preschool in accord with the Abbott quality standards, and uniformly across all programs; (b) in most instances, the document exhorts the reader to implement “developmentally appropriate practices” without explaining how this can and should be done; (c) the document focuses primarily on classroom activities and neglects program standards, program and child assessment, planning, budgeting, supervision, professional development, social and health services, and services and strategies for children with disabilities and limited-English proficiency; and (d) the document fails to establish clear, measurable standards of high quality classroom practice to which teaching staff can be held accountable.
The Court assumes that the Department’s promise to supplement the Expectations with a more comprehensive curriculum strategy entitled Early Childhood Education Curriculum Framework (Framework), to be in final draft form by April 30, 2002, will resolve the issue of preschool education quality. I do not share the Court’s confidence. Considering that four years will have elapsed between Abbott V (May 21, 1998) and the preparation of the basic preschool curriculum standards, and that review and implementation of these standards has yet to commence, I anticipate the occurrence of future controversy concerning preschool educational standards.
The funding issue has been even more contentious than the question of educational standards. In Abbott VI, this Court was sharply critical of both the DOE’s failure to provide guidance to the districts concerning applications for preschool funding and its uniform “form-letter” rejection of all districts requests for supplemental funding. We stated:
Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the DOE’s form-letter response to the districts’ requests, and caution that reasonable requests to fund supplemental programs must be handled fairly and quickly.
■.. We urge the Commissioner to work with the districts to resolve funding issues expeditiously; when an amicable resolution is not possible, decision making must occur early enough in the school year to allow programs to be implemented by the next school year.
[Abbott VI, supra, 163 N.J. at 118-119, 748 A.2d 82 (emphasis added).]
Despite our insistence in Abbott VI on “decision making ... early enough in the school year,” this record informs us that DOE decisions on twenty-three Abbott district preschool plans were *592received between May 17 and June 8, 2001, and decision on the remaining seven district plans were received between June 8 and September 1, 2001. The Court understandably characterizes the DOE’s compliance with our requirement for timely dispositions as “dismal,” ante at 543, 790 A.2d at 846. The fact is that the Department blatantly ignored the Court’s direction in Abbott VI. In the process, it eviscerated the right of districts to obtain timely review of funding decisions because the administrative appeal process ordered by the Court cannot possibly be effective if DOE funding decisions are delayed until a few months before the new school year begins. As the certification of Thomas Dunn Jr., Superintendent of the Elizabeth School District observes:
The process for resolving our disputes with the DOE over non-approved elements of our early childhood plans and funding have been a continuing source of frustration. If we elect to challenge the DOE’s decisions in the administrative process, the process has gotten so bogged down that, by the time we have settled our appeals, it’s too late in the school year to actually implement effectively many of the program components we were able to secure through the appeal. I am also very skeptical that, if we pursue the process through the OAL and the Commissioner, that we will ever be successful in having the Commissioner overturn funding and programmatic limitations imposed by his own Department to reduce the State costs of our program. The current delays in decision making and the appeals process are a serious hurdle for the District to overcome in making sure we secure what our children need.
Although the Court’s October Order attempts to address the issue of timely disposition by DOE in order to allow for effective administrative and appellate review, the likelihood is significant that funding disputes will arise subsequent to the Court-imposed deadline for DOE funding decisions on preschool program and budget proposals. The Court already has received conflicting submissions by the parties concerning the omission from the Court’s scheduling order of deadlines for decision on preschool supplemental funding (Additional Abbott v. Burke State Aid). See N.J.A.C. 6A:24-7.1 (noting that for purposes of district-wide budget requests-due February 25, 2002-that seek Additional Abbott v. Burke State Aid, expenditures related to approved early childhood education plans are entitled to highest priority). Stated simply, DOE decisions on preschool supplemental funding requests will be *593made substantially later than the deadlines contained in the Court’s October Order, so that the expedited review procedure will not be applicable to those decisions. Moreover, the ELC continues to object to the DOE’s continuing failure to provide the districts with adequate standards to guide their preparation of budget and program proposals including, by implication, the potential effect on those proposals of the preschool curriculum Framework to be completed by April 30, 2002.
The adequacy of district preschool funding for community care providers is an issue that pervades the existing record and appears likely to be a source of significant contention in the future. Several certifications in this record allege, as did Dr. Barnett’s, that “the DOE has again instructed districts to limit the level of funding provided to community-based programs under contract with the district to $4500 per child.” The certification of Joan Ponessa dated June 8, 2001 alleges that “the State has again [prescribed] a pre-set per pupil funding amount for community providers ... [with] no evidence that this pre-set amount will be sufficient to enable community providers to provide preschool at the Abbott quality standards.” In its brief to the Court, the Association for Children of New Jersey asserts that “systemic inequity in funding exacerbates the problems faced by community programs in recruiting and retaining qualified teachers,” noting that “school districts are in a better position than community providers to offer competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits.” Acting Chief Judge Masin, commenting on the DOE’s approval of a reduction from $5000 to $4500 per pupil in Paterson’s funding for four-year olds attending community provider programs, expressed skepticism over the DOE’s denial that it had mandated pre-set funding of community providers irrespective of need:
However, since the reduction was to $4,500, the reduction seems suspiciously to have been based on some pre-set DOE rate calculation. Again, if this is true, a proposition that the DOE denies, no evidence explaining or justifying the adequacy of that rate has been presented. If this is not true, how was the $4,500 rate determined? In the face of a record lacking in explanation and documents that are *594likewise empty, the appearance of the very arbitrariness that troubled the Court in Abbott TV is evident.
[OAL Initial Decision at 52.]
Despite the effort to facilitate administrative review reflected by the Court’s October Order, the magnitude, complexity, and cost implications of preschool implementation virtually guarantee that, for the short term, disputes over funding, curriculum, facilities, Head Start, and other issues will arise and require prompt and reliable resolution. In my view, funding issues present the most difficult challenge for both the State and the Abbott districts. Although Abbott preschool programs obviously must be adequately funded to be effective, the issue of affordability cannot be overlooked. New if any governmentally funded programs can claim entitlement to a blank check. Accordingly, the need for responsibility, pragmatism, and exceptional expertise is even more acute in the resolution of funding issues, for the benefit of the State as well as the districts. If the funding decisions that result from the administrative and judicial review process are too wide off the mark — either on the low or high end — the future of high quality Abbott preschool programs could be jeopardized. A highly qualified Special Master designated by this Court could offer stability, uniformity, practicality, and reduced friction to the dispute resolution process that to date has been virtually useless to all parties.
Ill
In his landmark 1979 Harvard Law Review article entitled “The Forms of Justice,” Professor Owen Fiss explained the value of the Special Master in institutional litigation:
The remedial phase in structural litigation is for from episodic. It has a beginning, maybe a middle, but no end — well, almost no end. It involves a long, continuous relationship between the judge and the institution; it is concerned not with the enforcement of a remedy already given, but with the giving or shaping of the remedy itself. The task is not to declare who is right or who is wrong, not to calculate the amount of damages or to formulate a decree designed to stop some discrete act. The task is to remove the condition that threatens the constitutional values. In some instances, where deinstitutionalization is conceivable, as in the mental health field, closing the institution may be a viable option. For the most part, in cases involving schools, prisons, welfare agencies, police departments, and *595housing authorities, for example, that option is not available. Then the remedy involves the court in nothing less than the reorganization of an ongoing institution, so as to remove the threat it poses to constitutional values. The court’s jurisdiction will last as long as the threat persists.
Limitations on our knowledge about organizational behavior, coupled with the capacity of organizations to adapt to the interventions by reestablishing preexisting power relationships, invariably result in a series of interventions — cycle after cycle of supplemental relief. A long term supervisory relationship develops between the judge and the institution, for performance must be monitored, and new strategies devised for making certain that the operation of the organization is kept unthin constitutional bounds. The judge may even create new agencies — once again the special master — to assist in these tasks. In doing so, he reflects either doubts about the capacity of the existing paHies to discharge these tasks or an awareness of the magnitude of these tasks.
[Owen M. Fiss, The Supreme Court 1978 Term, Foreword: The Forms of Justice, 93 Harv. L.Rev. 1, 27-28 (1979)(emphasis added).]
Similarly, in Southern Burlington County N.A.A.C.P. v. Mount Laurel Township, 92 N.J. 158, 456 A.2d 390 (1983), this Court explained that in institutional litigation the appointment of a special master is not to be regarded as a victory for either side, and that the master’s value lies in assisting all parties in resolving their differences:
While the appointment of a master is discretionary, we believe that such appointment is desirable in many cases where the court orders a revision of the land use regulations, especially if that revision is substantial. We do not view the appointment of a master as punitive in the least; it is not designed to settle scores with recalcitrant municipalities. The point here is that we intend that the appointment of masters be viewed by the court as a readily available device, one to be liberally used. In our view the master is of potential help to all concerned: to the municipality, to the plaintiffs, to the court and counsel. He or she is an expert, a negotiator, a mediator, and a catalyst — a person who will help the municipality select from the innumerable combinations of actions that could satisfy the constitutional obligation, the one that gives appropriate weight to the many conflicting interests involved, the one that satisfies not only the Constitution but, to some extent, the parties as well.
[Id. at 282-83, 456 A.2d 390.]
This Court has a unique role in this late stage of the approximately thirty-year history of urban school litigation in New Jersey. At every step of the long and arduous path leading to funding adequacy and essential substantive educational reforms, this Court has been required to act as the catalyst for urban school reform. Successful implementation of preschool in the *596Abbott districts, to a degree that will assure that the youngest children in those districts enter elementary school at grade level ready to learn, is among the most vital and indispensable components of that reform effort. Continued divisiveness among the community care providers, the districts, and the State can delay unduly the attainment of a successful preschool program for all eligible Abbott three-four-year-olds. Confronted with the disarray revealed by this record, the Court’s unwillingness to ensure implementation of its judgment mandating high quality preschool in the Abbott districts by the designation of a Special Master could be misunderstood to signal a lack of resolve and a dilution of the determination, perseverance, and consistency that has characterized the Court’s educational reform decisions over the past three decades. By declining to appoint a Special Master to assist all parties in arriving at a uniform, efficient, responsible, and cohesive dispute resolution process, the Court risks perpetuating the high degree of frustration, antagonism, delay, and deficient implementation that have plagued the State’s efforts these past four years. Unwilling to take that risk, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s disposition.
Granting in fart; denying in fart — Chief Justice PORITZ, and Justices COLEMAN, LONG, and LaVECCHIA — 4.
Concurring in fart; dissenting in fart — Justice LaVECCHIA — 1.
Granting — Justice STEIN — 1.