Steve Adubato Looks at Modernizing the Garden State’s School Funding Formula with Senator Gopal
Steve Adubato asks Sen. Gopal about the issues surrounding the school funding formula and what needs to be done to address it.
Sen. Gopal responds, “I think we need more clarity on this funding formula. It was put out in 2008 and it has not been modernized since then. We have had a lot of changes. Mental health and special education are a big driving factor. In Long Branch, they lost $10 million this year. They lost the most money of anywhere. Last year they gained 600,000 so that’s a $10.6 million swing in one year. They have about three weeks to put together a budget for cutting $10 million. This is a district that’s almost 70% free and reduced lunch.”
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New Jersey has several school issues to tackle or push under the rug for another 8 years. The school funding formula is a 15 year complex mess that many prominent legislators admit they do not understand. Devastating learning loss due to unnecessarily longest in the nation school closure during the pandemic which some of the same prominent legislators admit a large number of students will never catch up and as legislators, they did not have a sense of urgency to address the problem. They just handed these students a life sentence. New Jersey is the sixth most segregated school system in the nation. New Jersey has a large learning gap between social-economic groups and communities. New Jersey students are locked in poor or failing school districts with no way out, due to a zip code. These schools are not part of the BIA mantra. The NJEA founded a nonprofit using union member dues, named “Protecting Democracy” for its Presidents political war. Most union dues go to political action groups or causes, with over 95 percent going to a Democrat. A ton of money.
Red Bank, also lost a tremendous amount of school funding and has a majority low income demographic and also has a Charter School to include in its budget. More than 30 years ago, the solution recommended was regionalization instead of a Charter School. But, that word (regionalization) in New Jersey is considered political suicide. This is absolutely a political issue!