From WHYY Newsworks:
The world is full of mysteries and one of them is the way that New Jersey funds charter schools. It should be straight math, right? Not so much. Charter schools, sadly, exist within a maelstrom of political posturing from all sides. Chief among those hazards are misconceptions about funding. So let's demystify.
The history of school funding in N.J. is informed by a search for equity: all children, regardless of economic circumstance, are entitled to equally effective educational services. But, once upon a time (okay, until 1976) our school districts relied almost solely from revenue derived from local property tax levies, which meant that wealthier communities spent far more per student than poor communities. This reliance on local community wealth created unethical inequities within our public education system. A series of State Supreme Court cases, known as the Abbott rulings, tried to correct the vast funding inequities among socio-economically diverse districts by ordering that the state compensate tax-poor communities. Hence, N.J.'s state income tax, the great equalizer.
Read the rest here.