R' Aaron Lang a lawyer and teacher in the Lakewood school district has filed a lawsuit which is ongoing for 10 years against the state for demanding the Lakewood provide a thorough and efficient education but can not fund it under the current formula.
See full summation HERE
CONCLUSION
The matter at issue is about a funding formula that is arbitrary and capricious as applied to Lakewood, having no rational relationship to its expenses and the residential population it serves. The issue is that the formula needs to rationally fit the mandatory expenses of the district not how
financing the formula is to be divided between the state and locally. The issue would remain even if Lakewood Public School District was a middle class suburban district; but LPSD is an urban district whose students
are 90% low-income, 25% English Language Learners and 86% Hispanic, for whom the Supreme Court required a higher level of support for T & E. The heart of the matter is simply that a
11 district serving 38,000 school age children cannot provide a thorough and efficient education to its public school students under a formula designed for 6,000.
Respectfully Submitted
Arthur H. Lang, Attorney at Law
Dated: January 17, 2020
The state blames the deficits not on the formula but on Lakewood for not increasing taxes. They argue that Lakewood has wealth. Lakewood has a high ratio of equalized property value to public school students. This is the same argument the state made in the Bacon case in 2002.
ReplyDeleteI argue on page nine that the state’s argument is a fallacy. The Lakewood District’s expenses cover a residential school population six times greater than the public school population so that the ratio of equalized property value to all students is six times less than what the state calculates. A town of with 38,000 school-age children (the record did not allow updated numbers), not including infants, with an annual birth rate of over 4,400, a 21.3 median age, where 90% of public school students and 70% of nonpublic students are low-income, and ninth lowest per capita income out of 564 municipalities, does not have a large enough work force or enough income to bear the burden of the public schools on it own, particularly given that an extraordinary amount of the tax base’s aggregate income is depleted for the tuition of its 32,000 nonpublic students, an expense, if borne by the state, would be six times the amount the state says what the public school should cost, about $120 million. (The extra $600 million would be at state expense since the Lakewood share in the formula is $120 million and that would not change. BTW This means that unless the formula is changed, Lakewood will get NO formula aid).
Aaron Lang
Thank you Reb Aaron for all that you do with no fanfare and worse is that that the powers that be had you demoted. The olam supports you and stands with you.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely and with a whole heart! You have only tried to help Lakewood and for no reason besides that you care! Im sorry you haven't been treated with the appreciation we all feel.
DeleteThank you Aaron! You have done more for the Lakewood community than all of the other so called Askanim combined!
ReplyDelete