To the editor:
The lesson for all New Jersey school property taxpayers is that they should be focused on per-pupil cost, which ranges from $13,000 to over $30,000 statewide.
Municipal officials throughout the state recognize that high property taxes are the chief reason people leave New Jersey. They also know that it is a serious loss when people who pay school property taxes but do not use school resources leave.
Woodcliff Lake’s municipal officials have been struggling for years for a better deal for their school taxpayers. New Jersey should provide a better deal for all property taxpayers. Why should per-pupil costs vary so widely?
The lawyer representing Woodcliff Lake points to a “grossly disproportionate” funding formula in the Pascack Valley Regional High School District from his client’s viewpoint.
There is an inherent inequity in funding in all New Jersey school districts. It is that the state fails totally in its constitutional obligation to provide a thorough and efficient education throughout New Jersey. That would require promulgation of best educational practices everywhere, proper staffing to enforce those practices and 100 percent state funding of school costs.
It is ironic that, in the school district where Woodcliff Lake municipal officials are pushing for financial change, users of school resources are in an uproar about the educational product. Parents decry the elimination of grades and exams
The Pascack district is not one where per-pupil cost is $13,000. It never will be. But the Pascack district continues to brag about how good it is. The way things are going, all New Jersey school districts eventually may be paying more than $30,000 per pupil for schools without grades and exams.
Kurt F. Kron
Montvale