Student Enrollments & State School Finance Policies
Most readers of the NJDOE report on reforming the state’s school finance formula likely glided right past the seemingly innocuous recommendation to shift the enrollment count method for funding from a fall enrollment count to an average daily attendance figure. After all, on its face, the argument provided seems to make sense. Let’s fund on this basis so that we can incentivize increased attendance in our most impoverished and low performing districts. (Another argument I’ve heard in other states is “why would we fund kids who aren’t there?”). The data were even presented to validate that attendance rates are lower in these districts (Figure 3.1).
I, however, could not let this pass, because Average Daily Attendance as a basis for funding is actually a well
