The news media are full of stories about the waste and extravagant spending coming from the state-supplied money spigots of the Abbott Districts. In one case, Governor Corzine has ordered the state Attorney General’s Office to intervene in order to block elements of the outrageous employment contract awarded to Keansburg’s outgoing Superintendent of Schools, Barbara Trzeszkowski.
In another instance, Education Commissioner, Lucille Davey, claims that she couldn’t get the Elizabeth school district to fork over records required to investigate allegations of financial abuse. On Friday, she issued a subpoena to force the release of those records.
. . . and so the saga continues.
Ever since 1981, when the Newark-based Education Law Center, under the direction of Marilyn Morheuser, filed its now famous Abbott v. Burke lawsuit, there has been a seemingly endless string of litigation. A former nun-turned-attorney, Morheuser wanted to improve the education of children “attending poor and urban schools in New Jersey.”
Since then, the ELC’s actions have resulted in a serious funding bifurcation pitting the 31 Abbott Districts which ELC litigation serves, against the remaining school districts in the State of New Jersey. The money flowing from Trenton to non-Abbott School Districts is now acutely unequal.
Fiscal abuses within the Abbott Districts continue to be reported. Yet I don’t recall reading of any stern and persistent efforts by the ELC to require accountability from the Abbott Districts. The billions of dollars poured into the Abbotts by New Jersey taxpayers have resulted in enormous good; they also have resulted in apparently vast waste and loss of goodwill.
The acceptance of massive funding by the Abbotts from the entirety of the New Jersey community comes with undeniable ethical responsibilities for fiscal accountability. The Education Law Center needs to refocus its efforts away from the amount of money that the Abbotts receive and to redirect its energies towards the regulation and monitoring of educational standards, desired scholastic outcomes, and the enforcement of requirements to ensure the responsible stewardship of those funds.
How long should we hold our breath?
Note: For a list of the 31 Abbott Districts, see http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/education/abbotts/abbotturls.pl?string=code&maxhits=100. For a brief history of the Education Law Center see http://www.edlawcenter.org/ELCPublic/AboutELC/History.htm
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