N.J. Funding Decision Leaves Few Satisfied

Members of the media question New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last week after the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered the state to provide $500 million more to 31 urban districts in 2011-12 in order to fully fund its 2008 school-finance formula. Christie said he would comply with the court order only grudgingly, since it was based on a "failed legal and educational theory" that views spending as the key to school improvement.

—Mel Evans/AP

By Catherine Gewertz

A sharply divided New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that the state must provide more funding only to its 31 poorest urban school districts reinforced a controversial split in the way schools are funded in that state, and left lawmakers wrestling with how to meet their legal funding obligation to the rest of the public schools.

The May 24 ruling gave no one—except the poor urban districts—what they wanted.

Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who sought to rein in school spending, must now swallow a court mandate to spend more. Democratic lawmakers who wanted the court’s backing to send more money to suburban and rural schools must now figure out how to persuade colleagues to do so in a lean budget year. Lawyers for the 31 urban districts went home with a partial loaf, too, having lost their argument that scores of districts should get...