Abbott v. Burke

Rule of Law:

The Public School Education Act of 1975 is unconstitutional as applied to poorer urban school districts because it fails to provide a thorough and efficient education, requiring the State to assure funding in these districts at a level substantially equivalent to property-rich districts, independent of local taxing ability, and adequate for their special educational needs.

Facts:

• Plaintiffs are school children residing in poorer urban districts such as Camden, East Orange, Jersey City, and Irvington.
• New Jersey's Public School Education Act of 1975 established a school funding scheme combining state aid (equalization aid) with local property taxes, designed to equalize local taxing power up to a 'guaranteed tax base' (GTB).
• The Act's equalization aid is calculated based on the prior year's budget, and districts whose tax base exceeds the GTB receive 'minimum aid.'
• Poorer urban school districts, identified by low socioeconomic status, experience 'municipal overburden' (high non-educational municipal costs on a low property tax base), which makes them extremely reluctant to increase local taxes for school purposes.
• Educational expenditures per pupil in these poorer urban districts are significantly lower than in richer suburban districts, creating a vast disparity in funding despite the Act's equalizing provisions.
• Students in poorer urban districts consistently perform poorly on state-mandated basic skills tests (High School Proficiency Test - HSPT) and exhibit high dropout rates.
• Poorer urban districts offer significantly fewer advanced courses in subjects like computer science, foreign languages, and arts, and often have dilapidated facilities and inadequate equipment compared to their affluent suburban counterparts.
• The students in these districts have vastly greater educational and social needs, stemming from environments of poverty, violence, and despair, requiring a substantially different and more intensive educational approach.

Procedural Posture:

• Plaintiffs (school children from Camden, East Orange, Jersey City, and Irvington) commenced a suit in Superior Court, seeking a declaration that the Public School Education Act of 1975 was unconstitutional.
• The trial court dismissed the complaint, ruling that the issue should be determined by the Department of Education (administrative agency) for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
• Plaintiffs appealed to the Appellate Division.
• The Appellate Division reversed, holding that constitutional issues were beyond the Commissioner's power and that jurisdiction belonged in the Superior Court.
• The New Jersey Supreme Court granted certification (Abbott I, 100 N.J. 269, 495 A.2d 376 (1985)), finding that an administrative determination was needed to develop an adequate record and remanding the case for initial hearing and fact-finding before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).
• After extensive hearings over eight months, the ALJ found substantial disparities, concluded the Act and its funding were unconstitutional, and that plaintiffs’ districts were not providing a thorough and efficient education.
• The Commissioner of Education declined to accept the ALJ’s recommendations, rejecting findings of a strong link between property wealth/expenditures and educational quality, and concluding that the Act was constitutional as it required only a minimum substantive education and provided mechanisms for enforcement.
• The State Board of Education adopted the Commissioner’s decision, agreeing that the Act as implemented was constitutional statewide, despite recognizing severe problems in some districts and deficiencies in the funding statute.
• Plaintiffs then appealed to the Appellate Division, and the New Jersey Supreme Court certified that appeal for direct review.