The "False Premise" of Education Law Center's Latest School Funding Lawsuit

Last week I wrote about New Jersey’s “Bacon” lawsuit, an Abbott school funding case writ small. Sixteen rural districts in South Jersey, now represented by Education Law Center (which famously won the Abbott litigation twenty-five years ago) are suing the State for inadequate school funding. In the press release issued by ELC, Executive Director David Sciarra claims that “[s]tudents and families in these impoverished districts have no alternative but to return to court to secure the thorough and efficient education to which they are entitled. The State’s continuing refusal to remedy the constitutional violation in these districts is unconscionable and can no longer be tolerated.”

The sixteen Bacon 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.

In the comment section of that post last week, Jeffrey Bennett, a school board member in Essex County who has closely studied what he calls “New Jersey’s (mal)distribution of state aid,”  responded with a wealth of information.

Read his comments (his moniker is "State Aid Guy") yourself. What follows are some highlights, which include excerpts from some correspondence between fellow board members.

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