For the past forty or so years, New Jersey’s state funding for education has been the most lopsided in the country.
For the past forty or so years, New Jersey’s state funding for education has been the most lopsided in the country.
Because of activist state supreme court decisions, almost half of state support has been funneled into just 5% of the school districts, with the other half thinly distributed to the other 95% of districts. But despite these lucky 31 school districts, known as “Abbott districts,” having been bathed in tens of billions of Trenton dollars, the students have little to show for it.
The bottom line is that education funds can be more fairly allocated by putting spending decisions in the hands of parents, and used much more efficiently in parochial schools, private schools and online supplemental learning programs. We believe this will lead to better education and to equal or less spending of taxpayer funds.
Education savings accounts (“ESA”’s) are now being considered in our legislature. ESA’s, known as “Vouchers 2.0” by education reformers, offer parents the option to receive money in an account that they can use for private school tuition and other educational expenses to supplement learning or in lieu of sending their children to public schools. This legislation, which will be strongly opposed by the NJEA, can activate a strong coalition of parents and taxpayers fed up with unfair funding and failed spending. The NJEA is the largest spender in Trenton and a staunch opponent of school choice and even public charter schooling
These developments present a unique opportunity for school choice in New Jersey by setting the stage for a multi-year effort to focus attention on school spending and inferior outcomes.
E3 is committed to educating citizens of New Jersey on the benefits of school choice and to building support for real change.