NJ told to restore $173M in aid to poor districts or lose federal funds
The U.S. Department of Education has ordered New Jersey to reinstate $173 million in aid to some of the state’s poorest school districts to remain eligible for $2.5 billion in federal American Rescue Plan COVID relief funding for its schools.
New Jersey must ensure that its highest-poverty school districts (including some charter schools) receive at least the same amount of funding in financial years 2022 and 2023 as was provided in 2019, Ian Rosenblum, a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, said in a letter to Angelica Allen-McMillan, acting commissioner of the state Department of Education.
The $2.5 billion in federal emergency COVID relief funding that New Jersey is entitled to get depends on its being compliant with "maintenance of equity” provisions established by the federal government.
One of those provisions was that states could not disproportionately reduce state aid to impoverished school districts while receiving COVID relief funds through the American Rescue Plan.
Advocacy organizations New Jersey Together and the Education Law Center, which championed reinstating this aid to the districts, said they alerted the Legislature and the governor’s office about this earlier in the year.
The order from the federal government came after several months of advocacy by these organizations, including a letter from New Jersey Together to the U.S. Department of Education in which it highlighted the Jersey City school district as historically underfunded and suffering from poor infrastructure.
Many Jersey City schools lack air conditioning and potable drinking water, despite being the first local school district in the country to be taken over by the state in 1989, according to the letter. It is one of the state’s poorest and largest districts, qualifying as high-need and highest-poverty. The American Rescue Plan awarded the district $101 million in COVID relief.
School districts designated as “high need” and “high poverty” have a high concentration of students facing poverty. States were not permitted to reduce state aid on a per-pupil basis to a greater degree in the highest-poverty districts compared with their average spending, said Danielle Farrie, research director at the Education Law Center.
The restored aid will act as a buffer for these school districts while they dispense the American Rescue Plan funds to address COVID-related learning loss and capital improvements, among other priorities that grew out of the pandemic.
“My understanding of the whole point of the maintenance of equity is to protect school districts in this time of uncertainty,” Farrie said. States are already required to adhere to provisions that do not allow them to go below an overall level of funding. The requirement for maintenance of equity is taking it a step further, knowing that cuts in state aid often fall disproportionately on districts with higher poverty levels that rely more on state funds rather than local funding for budgets, Farrie said.
New Jersey was in the middle of a five-year process of phasing out aid to these school districts when the American Rescue Plan was passed. The cuts were part of a plan to have state aid reduced to a few hundred districts across the state, according to Senate Bill 2, a 2018 amendment in New Jersey’s school funding formula, Farrie said.
To remain eligible for American Rescue Plan Funding, the state needed to restore that aid to over 80 of its poorest districts for a period of two years, until the close of the COVID relief funding.
New Jersey lawmakers did not, at the time, restore that funding in the 2022 fiscal year budget. Instead, it set aside funds for that purpose in the form of state appropriations.
Frank MacMillan, New Jersey Together lead organizer, said “last-minute additions” were made to the budget allowing the state to allocate money toward maintenance of equity provisions without having to return to the Legislature for a vote. MacMillan said the additions were made after pressure by his organization and the Education Law Center.
New Jersey can provide the funding these impoverished school districts need, using these set-aside funds, reads the letter from Rosenblum, the federal official.
Farrie said her organization alerted state lawmakers and budget committee leaders Sen. Paul Sarlo and Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin in the summer that the state would be in violation if it did not restore aid for 2022 and 2023.
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“The most important thing here is that the federal government is telling New Jersey that it can’t use federal funds to take money away from highest-need children in the state of New Jersey and from the highest-poverty districts,” said Jyl Josephson, a Jersey City Together Education member and parent of a middle-schooler in the district.
Josephson, who also teaches political theory at Rutgers-Newark, said she became an advocate for the school district when she saw the water fountains there taped off due to high lead levels in the drinking water.
New Jersey Together met virtually with U.S Department of Education staff in the summer to discuss the state's violation of the American Rescue Plan.
David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center said his organization expects Gov. Phil Murphy and the Legislature to "immediately rescind the cuts and provide the funding owed to more than 80 districts.”
Among the 80 districts in question are Jersey City, South Hackensack, Neptune and Asbury Park.
Mary Ann Koruth covers education for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news about New Jersey's schools and how it affects your children, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: koruthm@northjersey.com
Twitter: @MaryAnnKoruth
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ told to restore $173M aid to poor districts or lose federal funds
