On the Relative Efficiency of New Jersey Public School Districts
PDF of Brief: Baker.Weber.NJEfficiency_8_2_16
Bruce D. Baker
Mark Weber
Contrary to current political rhetoric, New Jersey’s least efficient producers of student achievement gains are not the state’s large former Abbott districts – largely poor urban districts that benefited most in terms of state aid increases resulting from decades of litigation over school funding equity and adequacy. While some Abbott districts such as Asbury Park and Hoboken rate poorly on estimates of relative efficiency, other relatively inefficient local public school districts include some of the state’s most affluent suburban districts and small, segregated shore towns. And yet these districts will be, in effect, rewarded under Governor Chris Christie’s “Fairness Formula,”[1] even as equally inefficient but property-poor districts will lose state aid.
Findings herein are consistent with previous findings in cost-efficiency literature and analyses specific to New Jersey:
- There exists some margin of additional inefficiency associated with Abbott status relative to…
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