Speaking of our long history of correcting academic inequity through cash compensation, here’s Passaic Superintendent Robert Holster on how that remedy doesn’t work so well:

The spirit of Abbott (the state Supreme Court ruling that increased spending to the state’s 31 poorest school districts) gave opportunity to give equity for kids, but I think it wasn’t thought out enough for the past five years. And, I felt hostage to run required programs that to me didn’t show or demonstrate the degree of improvement it should have. I always believe you need three things to have success in education: a highly qualified teacher, small classroom size — reasonable classroom size, especially with our kids — and resources. I think we got too big too fast and we took on more than we could handle. We exhausted not only our buildings, but we exhausted ourselves over the past seven, eight years.