Bacon districts lose appeal

The Bacon districts lost their appeal to gain the same aid privileges the Abbott districts have:

[A trial judge] ruled on Dec. 15, 2014, that "district-specific needs assessments which they sought to enforce did not require the (Department of Education) to fully fund the districts under the SFRA or otherwise provide for specific relief and, therefore, there were no orders capable of being enforced under the rule," according to Friday's decision.
The Bacon districts' argument for more funding references a 2009 needs assessment done for all of the districts — pointing out specific ways that the individual districts could improve education for its students. 

The assessment found that the districts — varying in need — were to find help through either SFRA funding, regionalization or a better utilization of existing funds. 

The appellate division decided that the assessments did not call for additional funding.
"Significantly, none of the needs assessments concluded that fully funding the SFRA is necessary to ensure that students in Bacon districts receive a thorough and efficient education," Friday's decision states. "The needs assessments do not require the (Department of Education) or the Legislature to fully fund the districts under SFRA, or institute specific pre-school programs or building projects in the district."

In a better-governed, economically flush New Jersey the Bacon districts would get their full SFRA funding and state-funded Pre-K, but in our horribly governed, bankrupt, zero-sum budgetary reality, if the Bacon districts had triumphed in their case the money would have been taken away from other districts.

As I've said repeatedly on this blog, the Bacon case is fundamentally misguided since the Bacon districts are neither the poorest demographically nor the poorest in tax base nor the most underaided in New Jersey. The Bacon districts are poorer than average, but they have no moral right to cut ahead of districts like Freehold Boro, East Newark, Bound Brook, and Prospect Park in getting more state aid.

The Bacon districts are NOT rural equivalents of the Abbott districts.  As a class, they are not as poor demographically or in terms of tax base.

The Education Law Center's adoption of the Bacon case is just one of many examples of how the ELC has become just another law firm - "Sciarra & Trachtenberg, LLP" and not a social justice organization.

If the Abbott list were updated, who would be on it? Who would be off it?

What if the Abbott list were updated?  

The list of Abbott districts is based on poverty in 1984, not 2015.  Alas, even though a lot has changed in New Jersey and the world since 1984, the Abbott list has been almost totally constant.  Since the big Abbott II decision came out in 1990, the only change to the Abbott list was the addition of 1400-student Salem City in 2004.

I think the "Abbott Remedy" is very bad public policy in the first place. Since school districts have a continuum of need and local resources, there should be a continuum of state assistance.  Since the "Abbott Remedy" has always and only applied to Abbott districts, each successive court-ordered expansion of Abbott district privileges and aid and their denial to equally poor non-Abbotts has been more and more unfair.  If the New Jersey Supreme Court believes that a court cannot demand a comprehensive, unitary funding formula that would apply to all districts, then it should not have become involved in school funding in the first place.

The New Jersey Supreme Court thought it was righting suburban/urban "savage inequalities" based on property wealth, but in applying its remedy to the Abbotts and only the Abbotts, it has created another system of odious savage inequalities caused by differences in state aid.

Compounding the problem is that the Abbott list has never been updated.  Except for Salem City, no district has been added since 1990 and no district has ever been removed.  This post is for an alternate reality where the governor, legislature, NJ Supreme Court, and Education Law Center existed in the present and sought to use a list of specially protected districts that was up to date.

How the Abbott list was made in the first place

According to Other Peoples' Children, the NJ Supreme Court created the Abbott list by taking districts in DFG A or B that were classified as "urban" in a 1984 Kean administration report. Non-urban districts in DFG A and B were intentionally excluded, as was Atlantic City, because at the time it had such a high tax base.

Although the New Jersey Supreme Court should be criticized for Abbott, the failure to update the Abbott list is the fault of the New Jersey legislature and governor, since now the legislature and governor have the power to change the list.


Many people have said it is unfair to only apply the Abbott remedy to urban districts.  I concur.

Therefore I have a simple, although strict, conception of what an Abbott district should be:

1) among the lowest in property wealth as measured by Local Fair Share per student
2) among the highest for the percentage of students who are FRL-eligible.

There are have been 30-31 Abbott districts, so I will concentrate first on the 30 poorest in tax base and student poverty and then the 60 poorest in tax base and student poverty.

The thirty districts with the weakest tax bases are:


(Bolded means it is already an Abbott district.)

FAIRFIELD TWP	CUMBERLAND	$5,006
LINDENWOLD BORO	CAMDEN	$4,908
PLAINFIELD CITY	UNION	$4,795
EGG HARBOR CITY	ATLANTIC	$4,734
RIVERSIDE TWP	BURLINGTON	$4,644
PINE HILL BORO	CAMDEN	$4,525
NEW BRUNSWICK CITY	MIDDLESEX	$4,444
PEMBERTON TWP	BURLINGTON	$4,438
PAULSBORO BORO	GLOUCESTER	$4,375
MILLVILLE CITY	CUMBERLAND	$4,361
EAST ORANGE	ESSEX	$4,264
GLOUCESTER CITY	CAMDEN	$4,219
CITY OF ORANGE TWP	ESSEX	$4,191
BELVIDERE TOWN	WARREN	$4,126
UNION CITY	HUDSON	$4,112
NEWARK CITY	ESSEX	$3,834
ELIZABETH CITY	UNION	$3,813
BURLINGTON CITY	BURLINGTON	$3,794
PROSPECT PARK BORO	PASSAIC	$3,747
PERTH AMBOY CITY	MIDDLESEX	$3,689
PATERSON CITY	PASSAIC	$3,483
WOODLYNNE BORO	CAMDEN	$3,289
PLEASANTVILLE CITY	ATLANTIC	$3,288
TRENTON CITY	MERCER	$3,251
PHILLIPSBURG TOWN	WARREN	$3,209
PASSAIC CITY	PASSAIC	$3,193
NORTH HANOVER TWP	BURLINGTON	$2,883
SALEM CITY	SALEM	$2,463
SPOTSWOOD (HELMETTA)	MIDDLESEX	$1,869
CAMDEN CITY	CAMDEN	$1,782
BRIDGETON CITY	CUMBERLAND	$1,705

The 30 districts with the highest rates of students getting Free and Reduced Lunch are.

CAMDEN CITY	95%
UNION CITY	95%
SEASIDE HEIGHTS BORO	94%
ASBURY PARK	93%
BRIDGETON	93%
WOODLYNNE	93%
PASSAIC	91%
PATERSON	90%
TRENTON	89%
SALEM CITY	89%
ATLANTIC CITY	89%
RED BANK BORO	89%
PLAINFIELD	88%
NEW BRUNSWICK	88%
EAST NEWARK	88%
CITY OF ORANGE	86%
LAKEWOOD (B)	86%
PLEASANTVILLE	85%
PERTH AMBOY	85%
ELIZABETH CITY	85%
WILDWOOD CITY	85%
PROSPECT PARK	85%
FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP (B)	83%
HARRISON	81%
COMMERCIAL TOWNSHIP	81%
LONG BRANCH	79%
EGG HARBOR CITY	79%
GUTTENBERG	78%
FAIRVIEW	77%
FREEHOLD BORO	77%
EAST ORANGE	76%

I will not include the bottom 60 for tax base and FRL-eligibility.  See "The Poorest Districts in NJ" for tax base and this post on Hoboken's demographics for the 96 highest in FRL-eligibility.

Districts That Should/Could Be Abbotts if the NJ Legislature and Education Law Center Existed in 2015
Indisputable Abbotts: In the 30 poorest in tax base and in demographics.	Good Claim Abbotts: In the 30 poorest demographically, 60 poorest in tax base	Good Claim Abbotts: In the 60 poorest demographically, 30 poorest in tax base	Borderline Abbotts: 60 poorest demographically, 60 poorest in tax base
Bridgeton, Camden, East Orange, Egg Harbor City (B), Elizabeth, Fairfield (B), Newark, New Brunswick, Orange, Passaic, Paterson, Perth Amboy, Plainfield, Pleasantville, Prospect Park, Salem City, Trenton City, Union City, Woodlynne.	Commercial (B), East Newark, Freehold Boro,	Burlington City, Gloucester City, Lindenwold, Millville, Paulsboro	Clementon, Dover, Garfield, Haledon, Irvington, Keansburg, Lawrence (B) Vineland, Woodbury,

Who should be added to the Abbott list?

• Definitely Egg Harbor City, Fairfield, Prospect Park, and Woodlynne.
• Probably Commercial Township, East Newark, and Freehold Boro.
• Probably Lindenwold and Paulsboro.
• Maybe Clementon, Dover, Haledon, Lawrence, and Woodbury.

I've been very critical of the Bacon case in the past and remain so, even though this analysis shows that Egg Harbor City and Fairfield have legitimate rights to being Abbotts and Commercial Township and Lawrence have decent claims.

Since there are sixteen Bacon districts, this underscores the wrongness of the claims of the other twelve Bacon districts.  Also, although Egg Harbor City  and Fairfield should be Abbotts, they are not remotely among the most underaided districts in New Jersey.

Who should be off?

• Harrison.  Not even close economically and is becoming a heavy PILOT user.  
• Hoboken.  Is the richest district in NJ economically and not even close demographically either.  Also heavy PILOT user.
• Jersey City.  In the poorest 40 in FRL-eligibility, but not even close economically, also the state's worst PILOT abuser.
• Long Branch.  Not even close economically.
• Neptune Township.  Not even close economically or demographically. (52% FRL-eligible)
• Pemberton Township.  Not even close demographically.  (44% FRL-eligible)
• Phillipsburg.  It has the same tax base as Trenton, but is not even close to qualifying demographically.  (53% FRL-eligible)

The passage of SFRA in 2008 was a way to avoid a contentious battle over delisting any Abbott districts.  At the time, Abbott districts strongly resisted giving up a dime, as Hoboken's superintendent, Jack Raslowsky, beautifully said in 2007, “The governor should not assist other districts at the expense of Hoboken or any of the other Abbott districts."

SFRA's solution was to Abbottize all poor districts in New Jersey, but with new state funding, not redistribution.

SFRA passed at NJ's revenue peak and since then there has been no new money for education.  Thus, the unjust aid distribution with its Abbott/non-Abbott disparities persists.  Thus SFRA has been a total failure.  

Since we can't Abbottize all poor districts in New Jersey, maybe we could change the Abbott list?  

How Much Would It Costs to Abbottize the Bacon Districts?

The Bacon districts are 16 mostly poor, mostly southern New Jersey districts that are suing the state to gain the same privileges that the Abbott districts have.

The Bacon lawsuit began in 1997.   Originally the plaintiffs were represented by independent attorneys, but now the Bacon districts are represented by the Education Law Center, of Abbott fame/notoriety.

The ELC summarizes the Bacon case this way:

Bacon v. NJ Department of Education is a long-running case involving 16 poor, rural districts, many of them located in the southern portion of the state. Since 1997, these districts have demanded adequate resources to meet the needs of student populations characterized by intense poverty, high mobility rates and other challenges associated with high needs schools.  In 2008, the Appellate Court affirmed a State Board of Education determination that the Bacon districts were unable to provide a thorough and efficient education for their students under the current school funding formula. After introduction of the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), also in 2008, the NJ Department of Education determined that the new school aid formula would provide the Bacon districts with the resources they required. The SFRA would also entitle these districts to the high quality Abbott preschool program for all three- and four-year-olds. 

Initially, the Bacon districts received increased funding under the SFRA, but massive underfunding of the formula eliminated these increases. In addition, preschool expansion under the SFRA was never implemented. As a result, the districts determined that further action was necessary and sent a letter to the NJ Attorney General in July 2014, demanding full SFRA funding and implementation of high quality preschool.

I follow the Bacon case in newspapers and the ELC's website, but something I've seldom seen is how much it would cost New Jersey to Abbottize the Bacon districts.

The Bacon districts are not as property-poor as the Abbotts nor are their students. The Bacons often already receive substantial aid (four are overaided), and except for Lakewood they are small, so the costs of Abbottizing the Bacons would not be a fiscal earthquake, and yet with New Jersey on its fiscal deathbed, neither are the costs affordable.

K-12 Aid

	Actual Aid	Capped Aid	Uncapped Aid	Deficit/Surplus
Lakewood	$24,452,136	$29,342,563	$40,291,335	-$15,839,199
Hammonton Township	$15,273,362	$18,308,153	$29,605,068	-$14,331,706
Clayton	$9,844,658	$11,830,336	$16,656,516	-$6,811,858
Wallington	$3,069,415	$3,683,298	$9,013,771	-$5,944,356
Upper Deerfield	$6,282,322	$7,538,786	$8,377,929	-$2,095,607
Lawrence	$6,056,628	$7,259,042	$7,585,540	-$1,528,912
Egg Harbor City	$5,201,112	$6,241,334	$6,326,938	-$1,125,826
Buena Regional	$19,404,322	$20,486,403	$20,486,403	-$1,082,081
Fairfield	$6,003,352	$6,951,336	$6,951,336	-$947,984
Maurice River	$4,719,314	$5,320,583	$5,320,583	-$601,269
Commercial	$10,238,670	$10,700,214	$10,700,214	-$461,544
Quinton	$3,400,194	$3,655,619	$3,655,619	-$255,425
Lakehurst	$6,046,168	$6,166,995	$5,943,566	$102,602
Woodbine	$2,969,115	$2,965,575	$1,995,703	$973,412
Little Egg Harbor	$9,677,667	$10,132,008	$6,734,744	$2,942,923
Ocean Township	$6,934,480	$7,549,135	$1,233,928	$5,700,552
	$139,572,915	$158,131,380	$180,879,193
			Sum for Deficit districts	-$51,025,767

The sixteen Bacons already receive $139,572,915.  Their capped aid is $158,131,380, so bringing the Bacons up to their capped aid would be $18.6 million more than New Jersey is already giving to the Bacons.

To bring the Bacons up to their uncapped aid would cost an additional $51,025,767.  The cost could be a few million less if the state were allowed to reduce aid to the overaided Bacons (Ocean Township, Little Egg Harbor, Woodbine, and Lakehurst), but allowing any reductions is unlikely.

Pre-K

The other major cost of Abbottizing the Bacons would be offering state-funded Pre-K to all three and four year old children living there.

Unfortunately this cost is a little harder for me to assess since I have not been able to find out exactly how many three and four year olds live in the Bacons.

The best approach I could think of was to count the number of kindergarteners in each district and then assume that the number of kids in the three and four year old cohorts would be similar.

Using the School Performance Reports, I counted 1793 kindergarteners in the sixteen Bacon districts. If there are about 3,586 three and four year olds, then, at $13,500 per average child, the total Pre-K costs for the Bacon districts would be $48.4 million.

Most of the Bacon districts already have small Pre-K programs and already pull in $10.6 million in Pre-K money. If the existing $10.6 million offsets the full $48.4 million than the net increase to the state would be $37.8 million.

Construction Costs

The Abbott districts also get the state to pay for their construction costs through the Schools Development Authority.

For 2015-16 debt service on SDA bonds is $840 million. Most of that is for Abbott districts, but not all of it is.

I am not going to get out of my depth and give an estimate for what capital projects in the Bacon districts would cost.

Conclusion

Bringing the Bacon districts up to their full, uncapped SFRA aid would cost an additional $51 million. Establishing universal Pre-K would cost about an additional $37.8 million.

The total additional costs to the state could thus be about $90 million.

That's barely 1% of the total $8.6 billion Pre-K and K-12 aid stream. Normally a 1% cost increase isn't enough to bankrupt an entity, but New Jersey already is bankrupt.

$90 million might not sound like a lot of money for the a large state like New Jersey, but remember, state aid has had virtually no growth at all from 2013-2014 to 2015-2016 and we are going to have deeper cuts in the future as the Pension Crisis deepens.

There are also unknown implications for the Abbotts if the Bacon districts got their full, uncapped aid.

Right now about half of the Abbotts are underaided, so if the Bacons won their full, uncapped SFRA aid they would have out-Abbotted the Abbotts.

Newark's deficit is $131 million. Paterson's is $68 million. Elizabeth's is $63.9 million. Union City, Plainfield, and New Brunswick are in the high $30 million range. If the Bacon districts got full SFRA funding for the courts wouldn't the Abbotts have the same right?

Regardless of any implications for the Abbotts, when you consider that the Bacons are not New Jersey's poorest districts at all and are certainly not the most underaided, a pro-Bacon judgment would be very bad news indeed.

Education Law Center demands State ignore highest-poverty districts, worst-aided districts, give money to their plaintiffs.

David Sciarra of the firm Sciarra & Tractenberg, LLP, better known as the Education Law Center, is demanding the state give his plaintiffs, Bacon et al, money.

Seriously.  The Education Law Center is at it again on behalf of the Bacon districts.

(more background on Bacon is here)

The Bacon districts are sixteen mostly poor, but not consistently poor, districts mostly in southern New Jersey that are demanding the same state aid "remedies" provided to the Abbott districts.

ELC?  Social justice organization or law firm?  

The problem with the Bacon case is that these districts are too disparate economically.  They mostly aren't among New Jersey's most underaided nor among the state's poorest.  In an ideal world they would get more money but given New Jersey's budgetary realities I don't see why these districts should be prioritized.

Here are some financial bits of information about the Bacon districts:

Bacon District	FRL Eligibility	Local Fair Share	Local Tax Levy	Percentage of Local Fair Share Paid	Local Fair Share Per Student
Lakewood	92%	$96,735,200	$84,693,837	88%	$15,887
Commercial	79%	$3,541,907	$1,767,443	50%	$5,983
Egg Harbor City	77%	$2,362,322	$2,523,087	107%	$4,734
Fairfield	73%	$3,078,470	$754,016	24%	$4,629
Woodbine	57%	$1,984,654	$1,444,527	73%	$8,555
Lawrence	56%	$3,365,882	$2,157,571	64%	$6,786
Clayton	51%	$8,035,430	$7,711,155	96%	$5,948
Lakehurst	50%	$2,434,311	$1,088,776	45%	$6,147
Upper Deerfield	50%	$6,630,077	$6,513,969	98%	$7,302
Quinton	46%	$2,848,104	$2,307,609	81%	$8,232
Ocean Township	43%	$15,952,768	$10,143,436	64%	$29,488
Little Egg Harbor	43%	$15,957,145	$11,023,550	69%	$8,980
Maurice River	41%	$4,232,055	$2,702,847	64%	$9,160
Hammonton Township	38%	$20,385,878	$16,506,429	81%	$5,578
Buena Regional	35%	$13,216,890	$12,540,075	95%	$6,880
Wallington	30%	14,218,916	14,078,890	99%	$11,541

Three of the Bacon districts (Wallington, Buena, and Hammonton) are below the 40% FRL-eligibility threshold that is supposed to qualify a district for universal Pre-K.

Two or three of the Bacon districts (definitely Wallington and Ocean Township, arguably Lakewood) are actually above average in financial resources based on Local Fair Share per student.  Lakewood is very unusual demographically though so I will concede that its real financial resources are below what SFRA indicates for it.

Six of the Bacon districts (Maurice River, Little Egg Harbor, Ocean Township, Lakehurst, Lawrence, Woodbine, Fairfield, and Commericial) pay significantly below the state's average tax effort as measured by taxes as a percentage of Local Fair Share.

Three of the Bacon districts are actually overaided (Ocean Township, Woodbine, Lakehurst)

Bacon Districts
OCEAN TWP (Ocean County)	$6,203
WOODBINE BORO	$4,680
LAKEHURST BORO	$215
BUENA REGIONAL	-$606
COMMERCIAL TWP	-$637
QUINTON TWP	-$702
MAURICE RIVER TWP	-$1,120
FAIRFIELD TWP	-$1,785
EGG HARBOR CITY	-$2,453
UPPER DEERFIELD TWP	-$2,454
LAKEWOOD TWP	-$2,558
LAWRENCE TWP	-$2,618
LITTLE EGG HARBOR TWP	-$3,941
WALLINGTON BORO	-$4,326
CLAYTON BORO	-$5,027
HAMMONTON TOWN	-$5,200
Average	-$1,396

So I'm not seeing what the Bacons have in common with each other.

This is what I think would be fair:

1.  Hammonton, Clayton, and Wallington should get relief for K-12 aid along with every other district that has more than a $4000 per student state aid deficit.  

There are at least forty districts who are this underaided, three of which are Abbotts.

District	Aid Deficit per Pupil	Amount of Deficit	Amount to Bring district up to a $4000 per student aid deficit
MANCHESTER REGIONAL	-$10,737	-$10,254,058	-$6,454,046
BOUND BROOK	-$9,780	-$16,538,543	-$9,340,480
EAST NEWARK	-$8,906	-$3,606,961	-$1,339,338
FAIRVIEW BORO	-$8,746	-$15,750,845	-$6,236,244
FREEHOLD BORO	-$8,113	-$13,434,607	-$6,675,399
GUTTENBERG TOWN	-$6,341	-$8,154,474	-$2,413,571
MANVILLE BORO	-$6,211	-$8,980,439	-$3,057,813
LODI	-$6,179	-$21,192,598	-$7,476,149
NORTH PLAINFIELD	-$6,021	-$20,373,672	-$6,550,061
HALEDON BORO	-$6,001	-$5,983,279	-$2,045,022
ELMWOOD PARK	-$5,985	-$15,852,989	-$5,077,630
WOODLYNNE	-$5,982	-$3,385,931	-$822,530
PROSPECT PARK	-$5,896	-$4,917,551	-$1,664,688
LINDENWALD	-$5,885	-$15,385,916	-$4,776,590
RIDGEFIELD PARK (Bergen)	-$5,706	-$11,714,006	-$4,044,926
DOVER TOWN	-$5,484	-$15,158,394	-$4,636,016
BAYONNE	-$5,459	-$50,572,558	-$14,412,002
DUNELLEN	-$5,429	-$6,319,775	-$1,671,930
WHARTON	-$5,385	-$4,308,142	-$1,066,450
KEARNY TOWN	-$5,282	-$30,799,839	-$7,579,184
HI NELLA	-$5,263	-$636,815	-$89,673
HAMMONTON (B_	-$5,200	-$14,331,706	-$4,386,000
BELLEVILLE	-$5,162	-$24,868,905	-$5,507,880
CLAYTON (B)	-$5,027	-$6,811,858	-$1,387,477
NORTH BRUNSWICK	-$4,755	-$30,031,672	-$4,652,310
JAMESBURG	-$4,752	-$4,457,574	-$564,752
RED BANK BORO	-$4,665	-$6,494,224	-$938,315
CARTERET	-$4,591	-$16,807,010	-$2,233,980
HACKENSACK CITY	-$4,574	-$24,478,363	-$3,414,726
BLOOMFIELD	-$4,545	-$28,998,675	-$3,393,170
ATLANTIC CITY	-$4,526	-$31,596,134	-$3,838,222
LAUREL SPRINGS BORO	-$4,519	-$1,522,957	-$107,433
RIVERSIDE TOWNSHIP	-$4,475	-$5,634,399	-$712,500
NEWFIELD BORO	-$4,423	-$1,061,636	-$85,446
LITTLE FERRY BORO	-$4,414	-$5,743,020	-$411,930
CLIFTON	-$4,374	-$48,912,145	-$4,198,150
WALLINGTON BORO (B)	-$4,326	-$5,944,356	-$401,632
NETCONG BORO	-$4,258	-$1,217,849	-$73,014
CHESTERFIELD TOWNSHIP	-$4,246	-$3,281,982	-$182,778
PLAINFIELD CITY (A)	-$4,106	-$38,302,162	-$914,250
NEWTON TOWN	-$4,101	-$4,535,355	-$156,752
KINGSWAY REGIONAL	-$4,086	-$9,793,224	-$215,774
STERLING HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT	-$4,077	-$3,376,135	-$71,225
SOUTH RIVER BORO	-$4,069	-$9,420,236	-$164,565
WOODBRIDGE TOWNSHIP	-$4,061	-$54,742,677	-$838,567
PENN'S GROVE	-$4,059	-$8,573,210	-$138,768
NEW BRUNSWICK (A)	-$4,056	-$37,822,463	-$496,496
HILLSIDE	-$4,036	-$12,071,649	-$112,356
BRIDGETON CITY (A)	-$4,033	-$22,368,608	-$186,285
ROSELLE BORO	-$4,012	-$6,625,586	-$32,304

Bringing all of these districts up to a $4,000 per student deficit would mean that they are still treated unfairly, but it would only cost $137 million, an amount which should be findable.

2.  Lakewood, Commercial, Egg Harbor City, and Fairfield should get Pre-K funding along with every other district that has more than 70% FRL-eligibility.

Percentage FRL-eligible	Percentage FRL-eligible	Percentage FRL-eligible	Percentage FRL-eligible
Camden City*	95%	Prospect Park	85%
Union City*	95%	Fairfield Twnp	83%
Seaside Heights Boro	94%	Commercial Township (B)	81%
Woodlynne Boro	93%	Harrison*	81%
Asbury Park City*	93%	Egg Harbor City	79%
Bridgeton City*	93%	Long Branch*	79%
Passaic City*	91%	Guttenberg	78%
Paterson*	90%	Fairview	77%
Trenton*	89%	Freehold Boro	77%
Atlantic City	89%	Lindenwold	76%
Red Bank Boro	89%	East Orange*	76%
Salem City*	89%	Paulsboro	75%
Plainfield*	88%	Irvington*	74%
East Newark	88%	Lawnside	74%
New Brunswick*	88%	Keansburg	73%
Lakewood (B)	86%	Bound Brook	73%
Orange*	86%	Haledon	72%
Pleasantville*	85%	Garfield	71%
Perth Amboy*	85%	Jersey City	71%
Elizabeth City*	85%	Vineland	70%
Wildwood City	85%

Half of these districts are Abbotts and thus already get universal Pre-K.  There are only four Bacons on this list! (Lakewood, Fairfield Township, Commercial Township, and Egg Harbor City) The non-Abbott/non-Bacons that are just as entitled to help are Seaside Heights, Woodlynne, Atlantic City, Red Bank Boro, East Newark, Wildwood City, Prospect Park, Guttenberg Fairview, Freehold Boro, Lindenwold, Paulsboro, Lawnside, Bound Brook, and Haledon.  

David Sciarra said of the Bacons "There hasn't been one new preschool class opened in these districts. These kids have waited long enough."

Umm, why should kids in Hammonton get "free" Pre-K when kids in Red Bank Boro, East Newark, Freehold Boro don't?

3.  Lakewood is a unique case.

SFRA does not give an accurate Local Fair Share for Lakewood and special K-12 relief is justified. Since Lakewood's expenses for Transportation are so high the relief can take the form as an amendment to the formula for Transportation Aid so that districts with very high costs for private school transportation get some extra assistance.  

Lakewood's governance is also dysfunctional.  Some reforms are necessary. 

The Education Law Center should have to explain why it is taking this case.  The Bacon districts do not seem to me to merit the kind of special relief that the Abbott districts qualified for in 1990.  The Education Law Center should also explain where it thinks the money to Abbottize the Bacons should come from.