>Christie: Change the way at-risk students are counted
Gov. Chris Christie announced Monday that he’s looking for another way to count impoverished students whose districts qualify for additional school aid because the existing measure — participation in a subsidized school lunch program — is rife with fraud and may be to blame for the misdirection of tens of millions of dollars.
Christie signed an executive order convening a task force and giving it four months to come up with a new way to count economically disadvantaged students. The Republican governor also took aim at tax abatement programs, which he said might artificially deflate a community’s tax ratable base, another factor in determining aid to public school districts under the state school funding formula. (Delli Santi, Associated Press)