NJ Supreme Court appoints Special Master to investigate if money grows on trees

The members of the New Jersey State Supreme Court fancy themselves as the Appropriations Committee of the state legislature. From on high they wave their magic gavels and pronounce judgment on the "adequacy" of bugetary line items.

Their favorite target is school funding, with a long and inglorious history of meddling in the politics of tax policy. In their "landmark" 1976 Robinson v. Cahill decision they forced the governor and legislature to impose an income tax. So much for checks and balances. It was their way or the highway, and they've been on a power trip ever since. First they ordered "parity" between the 31 sainted Abbott school districts and their wealthier counterparts. And when test scores still didn't match up they demanded, and got, a funding formula which provides a more than 3 to 1 advantage in favor of the Abbotts.

Then reality struck last year in the form of a nationwide recession and the resultant precipitous decline in tax revenue. Governor Chris Christie was elected to forego the usual tax increases and bond issue sleight of hand. Instead he cut spending.

And the Abbott whingers went scurrying back in horror to their sugar daddies on the State Supreme Court. The future of their gravy train is in peril!

So here we are again. The black robed poobahs have demanded that Gov. Christie prove his cuts in Abbott district spending will not imperil their utopian vision of a "thorough and efficient" public education.

They've appointed a Special Master, Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne, to "investigate", hold hearings, and submit fact-findings and conclusions of law.

Judge Doyne has taken us down this path before. He was the Special Master in the last round of Abbott funding follies, ruling in 2008 in favor of that 3 to 1 per-pupil spending advantage now in place.

Here's a "fact" for you Judge. Money can't buy happiness. Or an education. Why don't you go ahead and demand a 4 to 1, or how about a ten to one funding advantage? Spend it all! Just how much money do we have flush down the toilet of failed urban schools before the entire state goes broke? Let's find out!

Because here's another "fact". Money doesn't grow on trees. And this time the taxpayers aren't going to stand idly by while you decree that it should.

"The reason the Supreme Court remanded it to (Doyne) is so he could conduct an evidentiary hearing: What would you have done if you received full funding of the formula? As a result of the cut in state aid, what kinds of staff and programmatic and educational cuts did you have to make? How did that affect the quality of eduction?" said Rutgers University law professor Paul Tractenberg, a former board member of the Education Law Center, the Newark-based advocacy group that brought the case.

Talk about stacking the deck. "What would you have done if you won the lottery?" "Uh, gee, Your Honor, I'm not sure, uh, buy a Porsche?" "Give that man a Porsche!"

Governor Christie understands what's going on, he said so during his State of the State speech:

"We must end the myth that more money equals better achievement. It is a failed legal theory — and we can no longer waste our children's time or the public's money waiting for it to work."

He's right. He's so right that his common sense statement flies completely over the heads of the ossified intellectuals who rule by judicial fiat.

What they decree must be so, for they hath decreed it!

So here's what I think. Fuck 'em. Don't play their game anymore. Stand up to the self-important stuffed shirts on the court and their utopian cohorts at the Education Law Center. Just say flat out, this is how much money you're getting, not a penny more, so you'd better find a way to make it work.

It's not a court's job to decide how much money the legislature should appropriate. What good is an election, especially one where we sent a clear message of fiscal reform, if a small group of unelected, unaccountable judges can operate as de facto dictators? Why have a governor or a legislature at all? To rubber-stamp the decrees of the State Supreme Court Politburo?

Nope. That's not how freedom and democracy work.

Posted at 12:17 by Chris Wysocki   [/education]   Comments | Perm Link |
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