Interesting article on an inner-city public school district (in lovely Camden, NJ)

I wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of those costs went to the helicopter gunships needed to provide security in that war zone.

Water is wet, sky is blue. The solution to schools is always to spend more.

Throwing money at it will not fix the education issue. Having education as a priority in the home is the first step, better quality teachers and school management would be the second step. Education system is in need of mass reform not just to keep pace with other countries but just to provide quality education to those who can't afford to go to private school.

I read a couple articles recently complaining about charter schools and how they skim the best inner city kids and leave the public schools with the garbage. As I think about this, I think it is genius and the best way to do things. Better to save the few with potential vs. letting them go down with the ship.

I am not sure how charter schools work in other cities, but in NYC its lottery based. There is another problem that no one seems to discuss about, that the children from this inner city, come from broken homes at times. There parents might not be around, they look for solidarity through gangs.

As much as we want to blame "teachers", not saying they're aren't bad teachers, but even if you took the best teachers and had them teach kids in Comptons, Camden etc, I don't believe we will see that much of a difference in test scores.

@SumOne My gf is a teacher at a public school and many of the teachers there are in vehement opposition to charter schools. Not sure that there's much merit to their argument though (she said it's something to do with having a facade of equity while underhandedly favoring the brighter student, therein boosting their own creds.)

Agree with teacher quality though.

I'm not sure what's funnier, the fact that you guys are discussing Jersey schools in poor socioeconomic districts or the fact that you guys are doing so without understanding the full effect of the problems with education in New Jersey. While we can all agree that the need for education starts in the home, there needs to be a desire to learn, requires parents can push their kids to do better than them, etc., at the end of the day, New Jersey's education problems aren't going to change because of a sudden shift from being wastelands to thriving cultural centers. This isn't a question of which district you live in or a question of charter schools versus non-charter schools. This isn't a question of how much it costs per pupil to educate. These poor public school districts will never be underfunded. Money will always be thrown at them because it legally has to. Even if all of a sudden Camden underwent a major turn around, both socioeconomically and educationally, it will always get more in aid money because it's got a Franchise Tag on it that can't be removed thanks to a wonderful lawsuit filed in 1981.

This all comes down to over 30 years of legal battles to help shape the way education funding has changed in New Jersey. In 1981, the Education Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of 20 children from various districts (Abbott et al.) against Fred Burke, Edward Hofgesang, Clifford Goldman and the New Jersey State Board of Education (collectively Burke, et al.) over the quality of education funding for Group 7 Districts, districts housing the poorest of students. This lawsuit was a result of two major points. The first point related to a New Jersey constitutional clause concerning education. The state constitution required that "the Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years." but left it at that with no explanation. The second point comes from the 1975 case of Robinson v. Cahill, in which the Supreme Court found that the state's strong reliance on property tax revenues gave an unfair advantage to the richer districts that had a much higher taxable base. So, the state legislature changed that and then in 1981, you had the first filing of Abbott v. Burke. It was not the first significant decision for Chief Justice Robert Wilentz's activist court, those came about in form of Mount Laurel II (which, in taking it's cues from the Hughes court, followed in former Governor and Chief Justice Richard Hughes' belief in judicial activism expanded the Mount Laurel I decision with far reaching implications) in 1983 and State v. Kelly in 1984, but it was In 1985, the first Abbott decision, Abbott I, was given. The Wilentz court was unanimous in their decision - that the funding to these poor districts was inadequate and that they needed to be provided with a quality education similar to those in the richest districts. Between 1990 and 2014, there have been 20 additional Abbott decisions (Abbott II thru Abbott XXI) that have forced significant amounts of money to spent on education in poor and under performing districts. Throw in scams like the NJ School Development Authority (formerly the Schools Development Corporation), various mandated programs and the NJEA (New Jersey Education Association - the Teacher's Union), funding will only increase to these districts because it's mandated by law or by union patronage.

So, going back to the question of the ELC's statistics - they are trying to normalize the value on a per pupil basis because they want to limit the obvious fact that when you factor everything into determining the value of an education, they want to try and get more money out of the state to fund these Abbott Districts. The only way to fix the problem is to begin with cleaning up Camden and it starts in the home and in the community before you can properly fix education. Throwing money at the problem doesn't work and it hasn't for the last 30+ years. If it worked, then why Clean up the city then you can fix education. The same thing can be said about Newark, Irvington, West New York, Hoboken (yes, I said Hoboken. Despite the massive wealth in Hoboken, it's still an Abbott District.), Jersey City (Jersey City's unique in that it is two separate towns in one - there is the Grove Street/Newport/Patavonia area with its concentration of wealth that should disqualify it from being an Abbott District and then there's the rest of Jersey City, which really is an Abbott District), and Elizabeth. The kicker is that I grew up living 30 minutes from 13 different Abbott Districts. 13 of 31 districts. I lived within a ~10 mile radius of 7 Abbott Districts. I saw first hand what some of these schools were like. It's not pretty. The amount of money that gets thrown into these districts is massive but it does nothing to fix the problem unless the community wants to see it fixed in the first place. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are bright spots in the Abbott System (Elizabeth High School, Dr. Robert McNair Academy in Jersey City, Science High in Newark). Those bright spots show promise, but the question is how to you examine what has made these schools so successful and take those ideas and bring them into places like Newark and Camden where the costs of educating are constantly growing without showing any real success in educating students. That should be the question we need to ask, not how much money can we bandy around to show our support for trying to "improve" a failed educational system.

As to the charter school question, in Newark they hold a lottery for the limited spaces available. Winning this lottery is considered a godsend by so many parents because it means their children are not going to be lost in the shuffle of the Newark school system. I cannot speak to Camden or other Group 7 districts with charter schools, but I can only guess that there are similar situations in Camden, Trenton and other districts.