Last May, New Jersey’s Supreme Court delivered the 21st Abbott vs. Burke decision, appropriating $500 million more from the state treasury for Abbott school districts. However, New Jersey’s history of court-ordered taxation to fund education originated with the Gross Income Tax Act of 1976. Advertised as a means to lower property taxes and limit the growth of public spending, the income tax was forced on residents by the court in order to improve student performance in economically disadvantaged districts by increasing per-pupil spending to the level of the wealthier districts.
After 35 years and billions of tax dollars redistributed by the courts to poor school districts, it seems timely to remember what William Graham Sumner wrote in 1883: “[T]he state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it ... .” Sumner referred to this producer and saver, from whom the state takes to give to others, as the “Forgotten Man.”
Forgotten, perhaps, but not by the tax collector. Government behaves more like the sheriff of Nottingham than Robin Hood as it devastates working families with aggressive, confiscatory income and property taxes. The property taxes of many families rival (or even exceed) their home mortgage payments, forcing them into foreclosure, and even out of the state. These “property-tax mortgages” cannot be repaid, and their “interest rates” never go down.
What happened to the mid-’70s plan to reform poorly performing schools with the state income tax? Unfortunately, all legislation suffers from the same shortcoming: It relies on future politicians to keep the promises made by their predecessors. Despite the court’s efforts, Abbott district student performance has remained stubbornly inferior to that of less well-funded neighboring districts. Rather than repair the “thoroughly inefficient” Abbott school systems, every year the Legislature and judiciary just throw more money at them. This has been government’s “big plan” for decades, and it is destroying the middle class.
If one considers a measure of efficiency based on student performance as a function of per-pupil spending, it is a cruel irony that increased court-ordered appropriations for failing schools actually decrease their efficiency, thereby moving them further from compliance with the constitutional mandate to “provide a thorough and efficient system of free public schools.” Serious changes in school business practices are necessary if Abbott districts hope to rival their better-performing neighbors. The situation is so out-of-control that even proponents of judicial taxation are beginning to notice. Douglas Reed, of Georgetown University, has commented, “The progression [of Abbott decisions] highlights the inability of the courts to do more than pump more money through the existing institutional framework of educational governance.” In other words, the continued poor performance of Abbott districts is a failure of the theory that courts can effectively control education policy by redistributing wealth.
Among the various proposals meant to address the problem of educating our children without overwhelming taxpayers with oppressive income and property taxes is New Jersey Sen. Michael Doherty’s Fair School Funding Act. The Fair School Funding Act would rebalance the tax scales by dedicating the income tax equally to all pupils in the state, regardless of socioeconomic status. Fair School Funding would return significant tax revenues to non-Abbott districts, while reducing funding to the comparatively inefficient Abbott schools. As a result, Doherty’s plan has been doomed to committee limbo by politicians intent on sustaining what has become a two-front war on students and taxpayers alike.
By now, however, it should be clear that simply redistributing income taxes is insufficient to solving the problem. Abbott districts are surrounded by schools that are providing better results at a fraction of the cost. A regional mentoring program to transfer local best practices to Abbott districts can reform the systemic problems billions of dollars have not fixed. In addition, the Fair School Funding Act should be phased in over several years, along with reforms, to eliminate the danger of responding to reduced funding with unnecessary program cuts.
Any lawmaker who is intellectually honest, both with himself and his constituents, must conclude that increased government spending has failed to improve the education of disadvantaged schoolchildren. However, that spending is needlessly crushing the life out of working families. The rising tide of government spending does not “lift all boats.” The boats of Sumner’s Forgotten Man — the boats of the taxpayers — are sinking under the weight of the taxes imposed to pay for it all.
Geoffrey Lewen is a former member of the Robbinsville Board of Education and founder of the Mercer County Tea Party. This article was originally published on the Times of Trenton.