Court: State need not release school-funding document

The state Department of Education does not have to release data it used to develop a new funding formula for the state's public schools, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

In a 5-0 decision, the justices said a document sought by the Education Law Center, which is challenging the new school funding formula, does not have to be released because it falls under the "deliberative process" exemption of the state's Open Public Meetings Act.

The new school funding formula represents the Corzine administration's effort to spread the state's education resources to all schools with poor students.

The reform, approved by the Legislature last year and included in the state budget, links state aid to the number of poor children in any given district. It put the state's 31 poorest "Abbott" districts, which have received billions of dollars of special aid, on the same footing as dozens of other towns struggling under less-than-adequate state funding.

A Superior Court judge who conducted a hearing on the reform measure upheld its constitutionality Wednesday. The issue now returns to the Supreme Court, which imposed the requirement for special aid to the state's poorest districts under its landmark Abbott v. Burke series of school-funding decisions.

Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling reversed two lower courts that said the document -- an Office of School Funding memorandum with statistical simulations used to compare three proposed funding formulas before one was chosen -- should be released because it contained "factual material."

The Supreme Court acknowledged the document "contains or involves factual components," but said releasing it "would reveal deliberations" during a decision-making process.

David Sciarra, the head of the Education Law Center in Newark, did not return a call for comment. Eric A. Stone, the New York attorney who represented the center, could not be reached for comment.

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto did not participate in yesterday's ruling.