A Realistic but Bold and Transformative Plan to End School Segregation in New Jersey

Sections of this document

1. Four Guiding Principles
2. Summary of Seven Realistic but Transformative Legislative Approaches
3. Description of Each Legislative Approach
4. Caveats

1. Guiding Principles

 “Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Involve everyone - cities and suburbs, all 21 counties.

A school integration plan must involve everyone. It must be statewide & involve entire regions if it is to shut off doors to destabilizing “flight.” 

• The “segregated” are not “the problem.”
• The diverse suburbs should be allies.
• The most exclusive and exclusionary districts must not be let off the hook.​

Use carrots more than sticks.

The aim must be to incentivize & push all districts, schools, classrooms, and even faculty - to better reflect the diversity of their regions & the state.

• Diverse working and middle-class districts should be “held harmless” and helped to stay diverse.
• Segregated districts should be supported in numerous ways.
• Affluent, exclusive, low-poverty districts should be pushed and incentivized to become more inclusive. 

It’s not just about race, it’s about opportunity.

A desegregation plan must be based on a thorough analysis of racial as well as economic and social factors, including a district’s property tax capacity.

• Measuring opportunity by school district uses multiple factors, including:
  • % of Free & Reduced School Lunch
  • % proficient in Math & Reading
  • Per Pupil-Property Tax Capacity

Use multiple tools – Not just one.

Exploit all available legislative and administrative tools (looking at what has worked and has not worked in other states) to drive the principles, including:

• School funding
• Interdistrict Choice
• Magnet Schools

Shut off loopholes and white flight escape routes.

• Charter schools must be made to integrate.
• End secessions.
• Regionalization cannot be used for segregation.
• Include Fair Housing.

2. Summary of Seven Legislative Approaches

The following summarizes specific proposals for legislative action.

1. Create the Division of School Integration to strengthen the DOE’s civil rights capacity and mission to develop a desegregation plan with the power, funds, mandate, & expertise to enforce it.
2. Enact the School Funding Formula Evaluation Task Force to make integration a goal of school funding & include civil rights stakeholders.
3. Reform and fund the Interdistrict Public School Choice Law to be a mandatory tool to achieve and fund integration goals within a region.
4. Remove segregationist loopholes from the School Consolidation Law.
5. Amend the Charter School Act to require charter schools to be fully integrated & meet regional integration goals.
6. Amend the County Vocational School Act – to designate & support pro-integration magnet schools & require county schools to meet economic & racial integration goals.
7. Strengthen the Fair Housing Act to increase Mount Laurel obligations on communities that maintain exclusionary schools.

3. Description of Legislative Approach

1. Create the Division of School Integration to strengthen the DOE’s civil rights capacity and mission to develop a desegregation plan with the power, funds, mandate, & expertise to enforce it.
   • The bill, creating the Division of School Integration, must include a spelled-out mandate to bring the State of New Jersey into compliance with its own constitutional requirement of guaranteeing a thorough and efficient education for all students free of racial segregation.
   • It must be required and have adequate resources to conduct an analysis of all New Jersey school districts-including demographics and fiscal capacity across school district boundaries within metropolitan regions and across the state (not just within school districts).
   • It must be provided with and authorized to obtain the tools and expertise needed to carry out a desegregation plan that includes the setting of integration goals for each district (and each school) based on their relative divergence or conformity with regional school integration goals.
   • It must be an adequately funded, dedicated, and specialized role with independence and statutory authority to carry out a school desegregation mandate.  This should include contracting with qualified expert/s in school desegregation.
   • The strategies available to such a Division and Director of School Desegregation must include all tools, policies, and programs that can incentivize and promote established integration goals set for each school district. The division must be required to ensure that all programs and decisions of the Department of Education advance the goals and are in full accord with the principles and goals of desegregation, including charter schools, magnet schools, any changes to send-receive relationships, the use of the Interdistrict Choice program, and evaluation and changes to the school funding formula.​​

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2. Enact the School Funding Formula Evaluation Task Force to make integration a goal of school funding & include civil rights stakeholders.
   • Expand & strengthen the state’s school funding formula to reward & incentivize diverse & integrated schools in cities as well as our many diverse, middle-class suburbs.
   • Direct & increase school aid to support & incentivize local integration & desegregation best practices where diversity already exists, especially in our many diverse suburbs.
   • Relative socio-economic diversity as well as per pupil fiscal capacity should continue to drive school aid, but these should be strengthened to better reward districts that have diverse schools and classrooms (including faculty) and not just the district.
   • Local school student assignment plans that create integrated schools should be rewarded and encouraged. Integration plans and even feasibility studies for integration plans can be rewarded in the form of additional school aid.
   • The most racially isolated schools (former Abbott) should be held harmless, but funding should not encourage or incentivize further segregation and economic isolation.
   • The most racially and economically exclusive and best-funded schools should receive the least amount of state aid. State aid should encourage integration but discourage segregation.

Places like South Orange/Maplewood, Woodbridge, Hamilton, and Galloway already reflect the diversity of their region and the state. As do gentrified or gentrifying cities like Jersey City and Hoboken. These places need carrots, more than sticks, to become examples of diversity and supporters of integration.

• The School Funding Formula Evaluation Task Force should be amended to make integration a goal of school funding and to include the appointment of integration stakeholders and experts. 

3. Reform the Interdistrict Public School Choice Law to be a mandatory tool to achieve and fund integration goals within a region.
   • It should be aimed at helping non-diverse districts achieve their assigned integration goals.
   • District goals are based on regional diversity and opportunity analysis.
   • Establishing district goals must be a part of the mandate and capacity of the Office of Desegregation. 
   • The law must require district sharing to promote integration and reduce segregation.
   • Affluent low-poverty districts should be prioritized and incentivized to use the program to recruit and accept students from high-poverty, racially segregated districts.
   • All district sharing plans and programs should be evaluated and approved by the Office of Desegregation and evaluated for their impact on integration within their district and region.

4. Remove segregationist loopholes from the School Consolidation Law.
   • End secessions. Ban the termination of any more regional send-receive arrangements or the dissolution of unified districts. Amend the new School Consolidation Bill to prohibit secessions while requiring an affirmative obligation to promote integration.
   • It must not permit “withdrawals” or “separations” as a step toward regionalization.
   • A withdrawal or separation is not consolidation but deregionalization! The exact opposite of the spirit and purpose of the law.
   • Allowing withdrawals, as a step toward consolidation, will only lead to more racial segregation, isolation, and the abandonment of poor children.
   • The bill must strike “withdrawals” and “separations” and make feasibility studies that include withdrawals and dissolutions ineligible for grants.
   • Include a provision that makes clear that no grant under the statute can be used for a feasibility study to investigate and/or support terminating any sending-receiving relationship under 18A:38-13. 
   • It must require an affirmative obligation to advance inclusion, diversity, and integration within the school district being consolidated.
   • Just as the bill has affirmative goals for efficacy and cost savings, it must also include an obligation to achieve racial and socioeconomic integration within the consolidated district (as defined by the demographics of the region).
   • The bill must make goals, projections, and plans for socioeconomic inclusion based on regional demographics a requirement for grant eligibility.

5. Amend the Charter School Act to require charter schools to be fully integrated & meet regional integration goals.
   • Require charter schools to be fully integrated and to meet integration goals based on regional demographics, not their district or neighborhood.
   • Amend the Charter School Program Act of 1995 and the NJ Administrative Code, Charter Schools, to require charter schools to meet regional segregation goals based on regional economic and racial demographics.

6. Amend the County Vocational School Act – to designate & support pro-integration magnet schools & require county schools to meet economic & racial integration goals.
   • Designate & support pro-integration magnet schools & require county schools to meet regional economic & racial integration goals.
   • Direct the New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA) to finance Pro-Integration Magnet Schools in all metro Areas.
   • Direct the NJ Schools Development Authority (SDA) to finance Pro-Integration Magnet Schools in all metro areas.

7. Strengthen the Fair Housing Act to increase Mount Laurel obligations on communities that maintain exclusionary schools.
   • We can strengthen the Fair Housing Act to increase Mount Laurel obligations on “far-flung” communities that maintain exclusionary schools.
   • We can lessen affordable housing obligations for diverse districts that meet integration goals.
   • S4251 can include school district demographics and diversity to determine reductions (or increases) in fair housing obligation.

4. Caveats

1. Avoid Short-Term Quick-Fixes, especially ones that trade costly expenditures in place of true inclusion, because “separate is never equal”.
2. Don't Blame the Victim. NJ’s high poverty, racially isolated districts did not create segregation. Their students did not choose it. They should not bear the burden of fixing it or paying for it.
3. Not all suburban & urban districts are the same; consider the relative diversity & fiscal capacity of all districts.
4. Do No Harm - The best intentions often bring harmful consequences, including well-meaning proposals:

• County consolidation in most NJ counties will not capture a diverse enough area to stop white flight.
• Simply removing district boundaries would only accelerate flight & deepen segregation.
• Magnet & vocational schools (or charters) should not be allowed to create new layers of exclusion. They must all meet meaningful goals for reflecting the economic & racial mix of their region.

5. Expect and prepare to adjust to plug up imaginative white flight alternatives.
6. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but don’t avoid a big, bold, and transformative approach.

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