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New Jersey public schools: a bottomless money pit
A new study by the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey, Misleading the Taxpayer: The Per-Pupil Expenditure Dilemma, confirms what some analysts have been asserting for years, namely, that the real per-pupil costs of New Jersey’s public schools are understated. In fact, the actual cost per pupil is as much as $14,000 more than the official data show. In other districts, the discrepancy is much less.
As the CISNJ study reports, “In 2010, New Jersey‘s local, state, and federal expenditures for its public Pre-K–12 system totaled $24.1 billion dollars…” Yes, thanks to one of the Supreme Court’s Abbott decisions, New Jersey has to pay for pre-K schools in so-called at risk districts even though the state constitution does not require public funds for such expenditures. In short, the Supreme Court overstepped its judicial duties by imposing on the taxpayers of the state a new financial mandate. (Sabrin for PolitickerNJ)
