On September 8, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, affirmed the state Education Commissioner’s decision that the Lakewood School District is not unconstitutionally underfunded. In Leonor Alcantara, et al. vs. Angelica Allen-McMillan, et al., the Court issued a 19-page decision affirming a 2024 determination by the State Education Commissioner. The Education Commissioner had been forced to follow an appeals court’s 2023 decision overruling an earlier administrative judge’s finding that Lakewood was not providing constitutionally mandated education to public school students and that a new funding mechanism was needed. According to the New Jersey Education Commissioner’s 2024 report: “The pervasive errors and questionable practices in Lakewood’s record-keeping result in the inefficient use of funds.”
Lakewood is in a unique position, said the Court in Alcantara, due to the majority of the children going to private schools. Therefore, public schools are adequately funded given the number of children enrolled. Any failure to provide students a thorough and efficient education (T&E) under the New Jersey Constitution is due to “fiscal mismanagement, failure to raise taxes, lack of a comprehensive preschool program, and transportation and special education spending issues.” This includes the amount of money the Legislature appropriates for public schools. In other words, New Jersey’s school funding formula under the State Funding Reform Act (SFRA) is not to blame.
Under the law, New Jersey is responsible for paying for transportation to and from school for both public and non-public school children. The State is also required to pay for special education services for all students who need them. As of October 2024, fewer than 5,000 students were enrolled in Lakewood public schools, while over 50,000 were enrolled in private schools, according to the New Jersey Monitor. A majority of these private school students are in yeshivos. The State only covers a small portion of these costs, with the local government responsible for the rest. The Lakewood School District borrows money from the State each year just to remain open.
The Court ruled that Lakewood was not required to raise taxes or control special education and transportation costs for non-public school students. Rather, Lakewood public school students had received all of the funding required for them to receive a thorough and efficient education. This is not to say that public schools were actually providing T&E – but that any deprivation of a constitutionally mandated education was due to a “consistent pattern of neglect and misfeasance by various elected and appointed Lakewood school leaders with respect to critical governance, finance, curriculum, transportation and special education recommendations made by respondents over the years,” which the Court said “lends an aura of deliberate indifference” evident in this 11-plus-year litigation. Amongst the failures of the Lakewood public school district were low test scores, failure to retain teachers, and mismanagement.
In an unrelated case which was settled with the New Jersey Education Department in August, parents of special education students secured the right to “stay put” in private school settings while they fight their claims that public schools are not providing them with a free and appropriate education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA).
According to the Court in Alcantara, it was not necessary to strike down the SFRA; rather, there are other measures available to remedy the deprivation of T&E for public school students. For example, the State could step in and appoint a monitor and take other oversight measures to ensure that public school students receive a thorough and efficient education.
In a statement to the New Jersey Monitor issued after the Court released its ruling, the attorney for the parents, Aron (Arthur) Lang, who himself is a retired public school teacher, expressed his disappointment. “You can’t provide mandated services such as transportation and special education for 50,000 kids on a budget designed for 5,000 kids,” Lang said. He said that contrary to the Court’s decision, mismanagement was not to blame. He plans on appealing the case to New Jersey’s Supreme Court.
Attorney Paul Tractenberg, who filed the initial Alcantara lawsuit in 2014 along with Lang, told the Asbury Park Press that he found the New Jersey Appeals Court’s ruling “deeply disappointing and bereft of any serious constitutional analysis.”
Even if the New Jersey Supreme Court agrees to hear this case, it still remains to be seen whether it will rule on the issue of reforms for Lakewood’s education system or funding for public schools. What does the future hold for funding and reforming education in New Jersey? This legal drama, which began in 2014, is far from over.