In an important lawsuit that could affect they way New Jersey assigns students to school districts based on where their parents can afford to live, the Latino Action Network, NAACP, and Education Law Center is accusing the Murphy Administration of stalling, biding its time until a new governor is sworn in.

“Regrettably, the State’s apparent goal in this litigation is to continue to stall its resolution so that the issue becomes the responsibility of the next administration,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote in a reply brief to the state. “But its alarming denial of responsibility, in and of itself, cries out for review.”

The case challenges home rule, arguing that our ZIP code-based method of assigning school districts is unconstitutional because it results in highly-segregated school districts. In Newark, for instance, almost all students are Latino and Black while Millburn, less than ten miles away, is almost entirely white and Asian.

Proposed remedies include expanding public charter schools (which in many cases are allowed to enroll students from nearby districts), taking the Interdistrict Public School Choice program out of hibernation (no new seats have been added in a decade despite high demand), and adding magnet schools across the state. All these interventions seek to circumvent home rule, which restricts students to a school district based on their ZIP code, which are themselves segregated due to housing costs.

In another development, the Superior Court Appellate Division approved the New Jersey Policy Institute (NJPI) to submit an amicus curiae brief. NJPI argues the Interdistrict program is tailor-made as a remedy because it is voluntary, cost-effective, has an existing infrastructure, and “overwhelming community demand,” with 2,000 students on waiting lists.

This lawsuit has already found a place in the current gubernatorial contest between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli. (Recent polling gives Sherrill a 20-point lead, although that will narrow.) Sherrill’s preferred solution is to expand magnet schools and points to her own district, Montclair, as a example of what she says are the desegregating effects of schools that draw students based on interest in, for instance, STEM or performing arts. However, NJ’s magnet schools are profoundly segregated because most admit students based on rigid criteria.

Ciattarelli would expand charter schools. In NJ, the public charter sector clusters in districts that primarily serve Black and Brown students, like Camden and Newark, and tend to attract more Black families. They are not less segregated, although students there consistently outperform non-charter students according to standardized testing data.