New Jersey is underfunding poor rural schools, denying kids access to preschool, complaint says

New Jersey's rural schools are vastly underfunded, says a complaint lawyers filed against the Gov. Chris Christie administration, John Mooney reports for NJ Spotlight. The complaint says that 16 schools in high poverty mostly rural areas are being underfunded by $18 million, "and about 2,000 eligible schoolchildren are being denied access to mandated preschool." 

The complaint keeps "alive a nearly 20-year-old claim as to whether the state has provided adequate resources to poor, rural districts," Mooney writes. "The complaint claims that the state has failed to adequately fund the School Funding Reform Act, violating a 2008 state appellate court ruling to provide the needed resources to these districts, including for mandated preschool." (Townmapsusa map: Officials in Hammonton, N.J. say the district is underfunded and understaffed)

Critics say the School Funding Reform Act hasn't "been funded since its first year under former Gov. Jon Corzine, and after steep cuts by Christie in 2010, three-quarters of all districts still have not returned to prior levels in funding," Mooney writes. The most extreme example might be in Hammonton, where Superintendent C. Dan Blachford said the district is under adequacy by $11,919,928 and is short 51 teachers and 12 administrators. (Read more)