A few months ago, we reported that the NJ Supreme Court refused to kill off the half-dead and long-damaging Abbott v. Burke. Corzine, backed by the New Jersey legislature, had come up with a new funding formula that would no longer favor the 31 poor districts ("Abbott" districts) singled out by the case. (For reference, the 2008-2009 NJ budget allocated $4.1 billion to the 31, while the remaining 616 districts only got $7.8 billion for the whole lot of them.)??Yesterday, a NJ Superior Court judge in Hackensack upheld the new formula as constitutional, calling it a "thoughtful, progressive attempt to assist at-risk children throughout the state of New Jersey, and not only those who by happenstance reside in Abbott districts." Hallelujah and Amen!
