The Governor is rushing the New Jersey Legislature to approve his School Funding Formula legislation by January 7, 2008. New legislation is required by the ongoing mandate of the New Jersey Supreme Court to provide all students a thorough and efficient education. Unfortunately, no one, including the Governor Corzine, seems either willing or able to provide a working understanding of what constitutes a thorough and efficient education. A review of the attributes of a reasonable formulation of any problem are absent from the legislation presented by Governor Corzine. Rather, the legislation appears to substitute junk science for scientific inquiry. Indeed, the Legislation may effectively fund education in a totally arbitrary and unconstrained manner.
(1) The Mandate for a Thorough and Efficient Education.
The New Jersey Constitution specifically requires “The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years.” NJ Constitution, Art. 8, § 4, par. 1. It also provides “All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain and natural inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness. NJ Constitution, Art. 1, par 1. (The New Jersey Supreme Court has held the guarantee of “equal protection” is implied in this paragraph and that said guarantee is more flexible than the Federal clause. The New Jersey Constitution, William, Robert F, pg. 29.
According to the New Jersey Supreme Court, equal protection as applied to a thorough and efficient education, at first and at least, means spending the same amount of money, based on an unspecified unit(s) of measurement, in the poorer districts as is spent in the wealthier districts. Robinson v. Cahill, 118 N.J. Super 223 (1972); Robinson v. Cahill, 60 NJ 473 (1973)( Also, see a. Fact Sheet, b. History of Abbott, c. Abbott Archives, & d. Abbott v Burke decisions). This mandate has been expanded to effectively incorporate the concept of a “meaningful opportunity” to obtain an education. Students in certain communities, such as those less well off, are not as well prepared or situated, to receive an education. For the opportunity to a thorough and efficient education to be meaningful, the State must address the special risks that distract or impair the learning process. Said differently, the State must create conditions that enable at-risk students to participate in schooling and engage in learning at a similar level to not-at-risk students. Therefore, to provide at-risk students with a reasonably level learning environment, the State education system must provide the additional funds necessary to remedy or overcome such risks.
It is within this context that Governor Corzine’s School Funding Formula purports to comply with the Court’s demand for equal protection. The pending legislation claims that funds are disbursed according to the measured needs of the individual student. If so, Corzine’s School Funding Formula is in accord with the demand for equal protection because it funds the creation of a level education playing field for all New Jersey students on an individual basis. School Funding Reform Act, § 2, par. d.
(2) The Elements of a Thorough and Efficient Education.
It seems obvious from the case law and its rulings that no one has a clue as to what thorough and efficient means or what elements compose a thorough and efficient education.
Governor Corzine’s proposed school funding formula legislation refers to this anomaly with the declaration “Although the Supreme Court of New Jersey has held the prior statutes did not establish a system of public education that was thorough and efficient as to certain districts, the Court has consistently held that the Legislature has the responsibility to substantively define to define what constitutes a thorough and efficient system of education responsive to that constitutional requirement. School Funding Reform Act, § 2, par. c.
Of equal irony, however, is the inability, unwillingness, or both, of Corzine’s school funding formula to set forth a reasonable, precise, working definition of thorough and efficient education. Aside from the New Jersey Supreme Court’s normalized spending requirement, Governor Corzine’s legislation fails to provide a quantified definition of “thorough and efficient education” and fails to identify its components. It is incomprehensible and appears outrageous that, 35 years after the Cahill ruling, that Governor Corzine has presented a 106 page proposal, that while chuck full of equations, is totally lacking in both the scientific and supportive empirical detail necessary to make a reasoned assessment of their reliability. Indeed, it seems the best the Governor is able to do is mimic the Court by memorializing the aspiration the legislation will “provide resources in a school funding formula that optimizes the likelihood that children that children will receive an education that will make them productive members of society.” School Funding Reform Act, § 2, par. b.
(3) The Attributes of a Reasonable Formula
To people with Governor Corzine’s background the word “optimize” has a very specific and rigorous meaning since during his tenure Goldman Sachs became a premier service provider to pension funds. The service provided was the ability to structure a pension fund to meet the funds future annual payout schedule by (1) choosing from a variety of permissible investment vehicles, (2) the investment vehicles and their respective amounts that require the smallest possible dollar outlay while (3) simultaneously getting the maximize return on each dollar invested, (4) in a manner consistent with the pension funds regulatory and actuarial constraints.
Let’s be more specific. First, a formula is a recipe for making something
and a recipe is a set of instructions about how to make something. Said differently, a formula and a recipe is an input-output model.
An education input-output model seems generally similar to a portfolio model. Like any other input-output model the product is the result of the accurate identification and combination of inputs allowed by current social, fiscal and legal constraints. So too, there must, to at least a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, be an identification of what constitutes a thorough and efficient education and which variables, that is the programs, proximate cause is most likely to produce it.
Once the inputs and output are known, modeling allocates money by minimizing the cost to buy the best combination of scientifically determined inputs in amounts and under conditions that enable every student to produce their own maximum proficiency in grade appropriate levels of reading, writing, and mathematical skills.
Assume there is an output variable that is the norm or normative range of the five year olds ability to verbalize. Other variables, input variables, must be identified that give proximate cause as to how and why said norm is and is not achieved by a child. Hence if the proximate cause of a five year old’s ability to verbalize is determined by interacting with adults but the child’s parents are working twelve hours a day, six days a week, for a minimum wage, in order to make ends meet, it is prudent to examine what can be done to compensate for the loss of parent time.
Suppose it is found that breakfast, story hour, child story telling, group play involving adult participation, and a rest period each produce, with varying degrees of success and tolerances, a verbal ability similar to that obtained from parent interaction. Maybe it’s also found a rest period is necessary for health, groups should be no larger than 10 children per adult, and the skill level and impact of the adults in different groups are directly and / or inversely related to cost. Further assume the same procedure is repeated for any variable, be it math, reading, or writing based. Once each education objective is reasonably decided upon and once the set of scientifically possible solutions, tolerances and constraints are reasonably known, they can be modeled to optimize a child’s meaningful learning opportunity at minimal cost.
(4) Governor Corzine’s School Funding Formula is Junk Science
There is no doubt that creating a school funding formula is an inherently more difficult task than portfolio management because it forces one to reduce the vagaries of human behavior into quantifiable variables. But our children deserve our best effort. Hence, it is no excuse for not doing so to the extent made possible by the current state of the science.
Yet, it is the apparent failure of the pending legislation to do so that makes the pending school funding formula seem to be nothing more than a substitution of junk science for science.
Scientific inquiry is founded on the general presumption that experts must identify the factual bases for their conclusion, explain the methodology, and show that both the methodology and conclusions are reliable. Atlantic Legal, pg 15, 2. Yet, the proposed Legislation and Department of Education (“DOE”) background is devoid of such content.
Scientific inquiry is based on the scientific method. Again, however, the proposed Legislation and DOE background is devoid of such content.
And, good science, like good due diligence, can withstand and needs critical review. Without the Appellate court ordered release of the three alternative school funding formulas, and a full opportunity for informed critical input, there can be no in thorough and efficient examination of the legislation. Accordingly, the impatient public’s view the approach is “Courtroom Alchemy” concocted by political “Confidence Men” can only be be reinforced.
Finally, even if the school funding formula is scientifically sound, it appears that in the end, it is irrelevant because, without good cause, it need not be followed. Ergo, the justification for a level of the funding and the standard of thorough and efficient education becomes arbitrary and useless.
According to the DOE: “Some districts may choose to spend funds differently – different programs, more or less personnel, higher or lower salaries – which are district decisions about how to best meet the standard {sic}.” The PJP Approach, pg.6.
Indeed, the DOE prominently alerts its readers that “It is critical to note, however, that panelists only identified a set of resources to be used in a series of hypothetical scenarios and did not specifically examine any existing school or district in the state. It is therefore not appropriate to suggest that any specific resources or programs identified by the panels should be applied to all New Jersey schools. … Instead the panel recommendations are perhaps best viewed simply in terms of identifying an overall level of funds which should be available to purchase personnel, resources, and programs as individual school or district leaders see fit.” Report on the Cost of Education, pg. i, pars. 4&5.
In the absence of the regular implementation of sound scientific and policy attributes all that is left is junk science.
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