Again, the rut: it’s not just about the money.
So it’s worth going back to those 2009 Assessment Reports and examining whether those non-fiscal obstacles have been addressed. Let’s look at two, Lakewood and Buena Regional.
Lakewood Public Schools (Ocean County) is one of N.J.’s weirder districts: it transports upwards of 25,000 children per day to Jewish day schools at enormous cost while the fewer than 5,000 in-district students, primarily poor and Hispanic, make do with the dregs, especially non-Jewish children with disabilities. State assessors noted in 2009 that the district’s fiscal problems are largely due to the school board’s “decision to direct a large proportion of resources” — over $5 million — “to providing courtesy busing to its public and non-public students,” which is a choice, not a mandate. Five years later, Lakewood’s transportation costs are almost $20 million.
For context, if the State funded the Bacon districts at the level requested by ELC, the total tab for all 16 would come to about $20 million.