By John Mooney
Federal Reserve Bank charts deep cuts in per-pupil funding, significant layoffs of teaching staff
The Great Recession has had a lasting impact on New Jersey public education, with funding rates struggling to return to prerecession levels, according to a new analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Marshalling a treasure trove of data, Federal Reserve economists Rajashri Chakrabarti and Max Livingston demonstrate that per-pupil funding had not climbed back to 2008 levels. What’s more, funding gaps for New Jersey schools are wider than they would be had they continued to grow at prerecession rates.
The report, “Still Not Out of the Woods? New Jersey Schools During the Recession and Beyond,” indicates that instructional spending was ultimately the hardest hit, citing Camden as one of the districts that suffered the most severe cuts.
ìNew Jersey school districts’ funding and expenditures showed sharp cuts after the recession and have not recovered in the years after,î reads the report. “Instead, the gap between the prerecession trend and the actual reality has grown over time.î
The report, which works with data through 2012, comes out as Gov. Chris Christie repeatedly boasts as part of his reelection campaign that state aid to schools is at the highest levels in New Jersey’s history.
“No one disputes the fact that the Great Recession has forced every level of government to control spending,” Michael Yaple, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said yesterday in response to the report.
“But let’s be clear: New Jersey’s current state funding for public schools is the most in history. Ever.”
Chakrabarti and Livingston do not contest that state aid has clawed back after steep cuts in 2010-2011, but say that state and local spending overall have not returned to prerecession growth rates. Chakrabarti conducted a similar study of New Jersey in 2012, and recently completed one for New York as well.
The latest New Jersey report says that the federal stimulus in the first year of the recession helped buttress the initial downturn in 2010, but Christie followed with a $1 billion cut in aid, and local districts have yet to recover.
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