N.J. State Board Backs Rewriting School Finance Formula

In a decision designed to spark a transformation of New Jersey’s school finance formula, the state board of education concluded last week that poor rural districts have been shortchanged in a state known nationally as a leader for providing billions of dollars in extra aid and programs to its poor urban districts.

The 11-0 decision by the New Jersey state board on Jan. 5 came in an 8-year-old bid by a group of small, rural districts to be classified as “special needs” districts like the 31 urban systems that get extra aid as a result of the long-running Abbott v. Burke court case there.

An administrative-law judge in 2002 found that five of the 17 districts should get the designation, but the commissioner of education in 2003 permitted only one to do so. Eight of the remaining districts appealed to the...