I actually live in both NJ and Pa.so I have a view on this subject. NJ standards aren’t bad by the usual measures, but they aren’t as good as they should be given the money spent. Pa. spends less and gets nearly the same result, and property taxes reflect the differences. I have two houses; both the same size and lot size. Both are in suburban/rural areas, with no special educational problems. The property taxes in NJ, where most of the tax goes to the schools, is 2X the Pa. tax.
In NJ all the latest liberal educational enhancements are practiced. In Pa. they do less. In NJ I’ve heard there are classrooms where special ed. students have their own adult “helper” in class with them. One teacher I met said she was leaving the profession because the 8 helpers she had in her classroom made it impossible to teach the rest of the class.
The local NJ taxes are faithfully raised by frequent tax assessments, which, of course, reflect the spiraling home values. These in turn are increasing because of restrictive land use rules imposed by those who want to keep development(sprawl)at bay. The money is always spent.
The losers are people who don’t have kids and are retired. They leave. Young families move to Pa. and commute. The population fill-in is from immigration at the lowest economic level. A formula for building your typical South American economy.
JeanLM—you very accurately described the financial tsunami which will hit NJ in the near future.
The underfunded pension funds, serving double and triple dippers,high taxes, wealth flow moving out of NJ and being replaced not with wealth generators but with lower class immigrants who require social services(more taxes) will implode the state.
When I lived there, I would ask people why they thought it took $ 32 billion dollars to run a state of less than eight million people? They had never even considered it. And that’s just the state budget, not the county, town, or school budgets.
I got out a year ago and moved to Southern Delaware, where at least there is a measure of sanity, both personal and financial. I could not see retiring in NJ. There would be nothing left after taxes and expenses. That’s not living.
Here’s another perspective. I spend 20% of what the state of NJ spends on education when I pay for my girls’ private Catholic School. In return, I am getting ten times the educational AND citizenship bang for my buck.
I truly wonder what excuse the libs would dream up for their failures if they were allowed to spend $100,000 a year per student.