A simple solution to the New Jersey education budget deficit

More than half of New Jersey school district budgets up for vote this week have been rejected, forcing many schools to come up with new ways to make ends meet. Of the 541 budgets on the special ballot, 316 or 58 per cent were rejected. As discussed on Monday, these budgets would have increased property taxes by as much as 12 per cent per household, which is a massive amount in such troubled economic times.


Now school administrators are scrambling for solutions. Some have recommended cutting after school programming, advanced placement classes, school hours and increasing class sizes to make up for the new deficits. I have a much easier solution…

New Jersey has 22.5 per cent of the nation’s 13,506 school districts to only serve a population of 8.7 million. Based on population, that is equivalent to New York City having 600 districts (we currently have only 31). Each of those districts needs a set of administrative staff, as well as a superintendent, with salary and overhead included. Is it really necessary to have so many districts? Instead of cutting courses for advanced students, perhaps New Jersey should consolidate a couple superintendent salaries. That would surely help to alleviate some of the burden the schools seem to think they have. By consolidating districts, funds could also be used to pay teachers an appropriate living wage.