My column today at NJ Spotlight considers new research that “tests the hypothesis, set out in the Abbott rulings, that students who live and go to richly funded schools in very poor cities can replicate the academic growth of children in wealthier districts.” From the column:

By and large, that’s how New Jersey serves its neediest students, a choice codified in the State Supreme Court’s Abbott rulings. For decades we’ve pumped cash and other resources into Abbott districts like Camden and ascribed chronic failures to the “poverty is destiny” paradigm.

Anyway, it’s a lot easier to write a check than confront the consequences of segregating poor kids into ghettoized school districts. Abbott is a soporific, allowing New Jersey to sustain the illusion that it can meet the constitutionally mandated equal access to public education without ruffling our home rule plumage.

Read the whole thing here.