DOE's annual
guide notes more money goes to special ed districts
Thursday, March 20, 2008 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger
At more than $25,000 per stu dent,
the Top 10 list in New Jersey school spending this year continues
to be dominated by the state's county-run special-education
districts.
At less than $10,000 per child,
the bottom of the list is filled by middle- or working-class
districts like Guttenberg, Sayreville and South River.
And in between, there remain
wide gaps in how -- and how much -- school money is spent even
among districts sitting next to one another.
The disparate picture is on display
in the state Department of Education's annual guide to school
spending, which was released yesterday and updates the breakdowns
and comparisons of how much each district spends overall and
in areas such as classroom salaries, administration and even
food service.
Overall per pupil spending on
average rose nearly 5 percent this year, to $12,720 for the
2007-08 school year, according to the state. Classroom instruction
accounted for nearly 60 percent of that figure, with support
services like guidance counseling and nursing taking up another
15 percent and administrative costs another 11 percent.
But in a year when Gov. Jon Corzine
and the Legislature rewrote the school funding law to more evenly
distribute aid to schools, the spending data showed the depth
of the challenge ahead.
Bergen County's Special Services
District, in serving exclusively students with special needs
and disabilities, had the highest spend ing at $55,642 per child.
But both wealthy districts like Englewood Cliffs and poor urban
ones like Asbury Park also were among those spending at least
$20,000.
The lowest spending districts
also are hard to categorize. They include some of the middle-class
districts Corzine's plan aims to help, but four of the bottom
10 also are charter schools that have seen mixed rewards from
the funding plan so far.
Released ahead of April school
budget votes, the 2008 Comparative Spending Guide is intended
to better inform residents as they decide on their school spending,
officials said.
"For the past decade, we have
produced the Comparative Spend ing Guide to show the public
how their school tax dollars are spent," state Education Commissioner
Lu cille Davy said in a statement.
"We release the guide at this
time of year to stimulate local discussions as school boards
present their proposed budgets for public review and comment."
The entire report can be found
online at: http://www.nj.gov/njded/
guide/2008/.