Currently 5,000 students cross district boundaries and attend one of 137 schools that participate in the public school choice program. There are 1,000 more children on waiting lists but the state – in violation of the Interdistrict Public School Choice Act – placed a stringent cap on the number of seats that school boards can offer to out-of-district students. The reasons for that cap are some oddities in the 2008 School Funding Reform Act, which dictates state aid for school districts. Garguilo explains that the funding formula “actually allows for multiple payments for one student -- or as some would describe it, the funding of 'ghost' students.”
He continues, "[t]herefore, a Choice district” – a district where the school board votes to accept out-of-district students -- “was able to maintain adjustment aid, get Choice aid, and receive state aid for a Choice student while the sending district got aid as well. The state can actually be paying for one and the same student in four different aid categories!"
Thus, the cap on program growth. Thus, the waiting list. Thus, the stifling of an immensely popular program.
There are a host of problems embedded in SFRA, including its immunity to fiscal reality, but legislators are loath to touch this political hot potato. Garguilo offers an equitable solution to the state’s redundant payments: let state aid "follow the child rather than pad district budgets," and he outlines a specific proposal for funding allocations. However, these changes would require Statehouse leaders to redirect attention from panderous educational bill proposals like charter moratoria and anti-testing schemes to legislation that would actually help students and families. Let's hope our legislators are up to the challenge.
I’m glad that someone from the Interdistrict Choice association is aware of problems in the formula for Interdistrict Choice and proposes some limitations of the privilege that Choice districts enjoy. I’m glad to see anyone address the unfairness of Adjustment Aid.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Garguilo’s proposed reforms don’t go nearly far enough.
1. Interdistrict Choice funds “ghost students” in more than one way. There are the aid payments to districts that have lost the students to Interdistrict Choice for one (which Garguilo addresses), but there are payments to Choice districts that have lost Choice students through Additional Adjustment Aid.
For the past two years when a Choice district has had a net loss of Choice students its aid stream through Choice Aid has been reduced but it has received dollar for dollar equalization through “Additional Adjustment Aid.”
The amounts of money given are quite large. Englewood, for instance, gets nearly a half million. Hoboken gets a quarter million. The Additional Adjustment Aid amoutns are even less justified than the “ghost student” situation that Bob Garguilo refers to.
2. Garguimo’s reform would be very financially damaging to some net sending districts and this underscores a fundamental flaw in Interdistrict Choice. If an urban, poor, high-aid district loses students to Interdistrict Choice and its state aid for those students, it will have large budgetary problems. The financial effect is the same as it is for a district losing students to charter schools.
3. Bob Garguilo misses one of the biggest unfairness of Interdistrict Choice, which is that Choice districts are paid on the raw number of incoming Choice students, not the net change of enrollment. So if two Choice districts swap students with each other, so ten kids go from one district to another and vice versa, each district gets paid for accepting ten new students, even though the net increase in student population is zero.
4. Finally, Bob Garguimo and the Interdistrict Choice Association do not care that NJ’s aid distribution is appallingly unfair as it is. There are 117 districts that get 50% or less of their uncapped SFRA aid. Chesterfield Township only gets 11% of its recommended aid. Some of these districts have high rates of student poverty, like Clifton and Bloomfield. Other districts, like West Orange an d South Orange-Maplewood, have the state’s worst taxes. Some low-aided districts should be getting $2,000-$3,000 more per student.
Finding more money for these severely underaided districts should be the state’s priority.
5. Garguimo does not address the fact that low-income students usually cannot participate in Interdistrict Choice because transportation funding is inadequate. Indeed, Deal, NJ's #1 school for Interdistrict Choice, reports that 0% of its students are FRL-eligible.
Garguimo’s proposals would make Interdistrict Choice slightly less unfair, but they would not fix the fundamental problems of the program.
Also, what is the basis for calling Interdistrict Choice "immensely popular."
ReplyDeleteThere are 1,370,000 public school children in NJ.
There are about 160,000 private school children in NJ.
There are about 40,000 homeschooled children in NJ.
There are about 30,000 charter school children in NJ.
How does a program with a 5,000 student enrollment count as "immensely popular"?