N.J.'s Top Court Wrestles Anew With Funding Issue

State officials ask to have rulings set aside in landmark Abbott v. Burke case; foes say that new funding formula would shortchange poor urban districts.

New Jersey leaders have asked the state’s highest court to set aside a family of landmark rulings that have funneled billions of dollars into efforts to improve schooling for low-income urban districts. The officials argue that their new school funding formula offers a fairer way of supporting all children in the state.

Big questions hinge on a decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court, which heard arguments in Trenton last month involving the long-running case of Abbott v. Burke .

Among them: Is urban poverty unique, requiring discrete funding and programmatic support, as the court has mandated for more than a decade? Without that support, will big-city schoolchildren slip further behind? And will the new formula sufficiently address high need, whether in tiny...