In Abbott v. Burke, the long-running saga regarding school funding that began with what is now known as Abbott I, 100 N.J. 269 (1985), and continues today, the Supreme Court has issued more than twenty decisions. As a result, the odds are that any given date may be an anniversary of an Abbott opinion. Today is such a date. Eighteen years ago today, the Court decided Abbott III, 136 N.J. 444 (1994).
After a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1970’s in the case of Robinson v. Cahill, which declared New Jersey’s system of school funding unconstitutional, in violation of Article VIII, section 4, paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution (requiring the provision of a “thorough and efficient system of free public schools”), the Legislature passed the Public School Education Act (“PSEA”) of 1975. The Court found the PSEA to be constitutional, at least facially.
Thereafter, however, students from several urban areas challenged the PSEA as applied. Abbott I remanded the case to an administrative law judge for creation of a full record. On appeal from that proceeding, the Court declared the PSEA unconstitutional as applied. Abbott II, 119 N.J. 287 (1990).
In response to that ruling, the Legislature adopted the Quality Education Act of 1990. In Abbott III, on July 12, 1994, the Court found that statute unconstitutional as well because it failed to ensure parity of regular eduction expenditures between poorer “special needs” school district and wealthier districts. Reaffirming its earlier Abbott ruling, the Court held that “[f]or these special needs districts, a thorough and efficient education– one that will enable their students to function effectively in the same society with their richer peers both as citizens and as competitors in the labor market– is an education that is the substantial equivalent of that afforded in the richer districts.”
The Court declined to enter any enforcement order at that time, however. State aid to the special needs districts since Abbott II had closed the gap between those districts and the wealthier districts to some extent. Instead, the Justices said that they would entertain applications for relief if substantial equivalence in expenditures per pupil were not achieved by the 1997-98 school year, or “[i]f movement towards that end at any time suggests less than a reasonable likelihood of achieving compliance by 1997-1998.” In response to Abbott III, the Legislature passed the Comprehensive Educational Improvement and Financing Act of 1996, which the plaintiffs again challenged, and the case has continued, in one form or another, until today.