Can Education Law Center Bring Home the Bacon?

Education Law Center has joined the plaintiffs in the “Bacon” cases, a lawsuit that charges that sixteen small rural districts in New Jersey are deprived of adequate state aid despite a level of poverty that approaches Abbott districts. But while Abbotts get lots of compensatory aid, Bacons get bubkes. Here’s the press release from ELC and here’s the story from NJ Spotlight.

One of the impetuses for the 2008 School Funding Reform Act, which intended to fairly distribute state aid money based on need, was to get out of the Abbott hole and avoid further Bacon litigation. Money would go directly to needy children, regardless of district of residence.  State finances held up long enough for former Governor Jon Corzine to fulfill the funding formula for one year, but every year since then, during the rest of Corzine’s term and throughout Gov. Christie’s, there has not been enough state revenue to meet the distribution requirements of  SFRA.

So the Bacon cases are back in court. Those sixteen poor rural districts are Buena Regional, Clayton, Commercial, Egg Harbor City, Fairfield, Hammonton Township, Lakehurst, Lakewood, Lawrence, Little Egg Harbor, Maurice River, Ocean Township, Quinton, Upper Deerfield, Wallington, and Woodbine.

I covered this a few years ago, so go here for more background.  At that time, the Court ordered needs-assessments done on all the Bacon districts and those analyses are included in the brief. Here’s a section from the brief that urges mandatory consolidation of Bacon districts with their more wealthy neighbors:

A regionalization study…would be key to the funding of the Bacon districts…Each district gave its full cooperation to the Executive County Superintendents who conducted these studies. Virtually every Bacon districts and its voters would be thrilled to consolidate with wealthier and more property rich districts that are close by. Clayton officials, for example, have tried numerous times to combine with Glassboro to its north or Delsea Regional (Franklin and Elk Townships) to its south, north, and east. These entreaties have been continuously rebuffed. As another example, Woodbine’s K-8 school is less than five (5) miles from Dennis Township’s K-8 school. Woodbine’s officials and voters would love to combine with Dennis Township. There is zero chance that Dennis Township voters would agree to combine with Woodbine, unless such regionalization becomes mandatory.