Education finance policy in New Jersey has been shaped by over 30 years of school finance litigation. Through its decisions in "Robinson v. Cahill" (1973-1976) and "Abbott v. Burke" (1985-2005), the justices of New Jersey's supreme court have defined the state's constitutional guarantee of a "thorough and efficient"…

Introducing the fate of school finance reform as the topic of the next two issues of the Journal of Education Finance, the authors note the clash of values at the heart of the equity issue as described by the journal's contributors. They argue for legislative control as the way to resolve conflicts about school finance equity. (JW)

Concerns the ability of the New Jersey school reform groups that won in court in the Robinson v. Cahill decision to gain access and the requisite resources to affect the new school finance formula and the development of "thorough and efficient" guidelines. (Author/IRT)

Examines the necessity, availability, and feasibility of collecting and analyzing data on human and fiscal resources at the school level, based on the author's studies of Chapter 1 programs and New Jersey's school finance reform. Explores answerable questions; necessary data; collection challenges involving revenues and expenditures, staff,…

In June 1990, after 9 years of court battles, the state supreme court had found that New Jersey's school finance system was inequitable and had to be changed to better support children in urban schools. This book details the reasons behind the reform and its effects and tracks the impact of the reform from its dollar effects on fiscal equity in…

A recent study revealed deficiencies in the long-awaited "Abbott v. Burke" ruling, which benefited 28 inner-city districts and shortchanged poor rural and middle-wealth districts. By ignoring these groups of districts, New Jersey lawmakers have sown the seeds of taxpayer backlash, as evidenced by two recent lawsuits. (Contains 23…

Presents a history of New Jersey's Public School Education Act of 1975, including a discussion of the landmark decision Robinson v. Cahill (1970), which found the state's educational finance system unconstitutional. Measures of expenditure disparity and wealth neutrality are then used to assess the present New Jersey school finance system. (JW)