In 2008, New Jersey enacted the School Reform Funding Act (SRFA) which was designed to create a new school funding formula to end a long cycle of failed legislative attempts to reduce school spending inequalities across the state’s school districts. Unfortunately, the SRFA created its own revenue inequalities, primarily with some New Jersey school districts receiving more state aid than what the government was required to provide, while others did not receive the required amount of state funding based on the new formula.
In 2018, Bill S-2 was signed to revise the SRFA and address the funding inequalities. This new project will provide systematic analysis of how these school formula changes following the 2017-2018 school year impacted the distribution of state aid across New Jersey school districts. The research will be obtained by using district-level data on financial and student achievement variables from the New Jersey Department of Education before and after the implementation of the S-2 bill.