Where the Money Went: Revenue, Expenditure, and Programmatic Changes in the First Year of New Jersey's Quality Education Act.

Questions about inequities in educational funding were raised in New Jersey when the legislature enacted the state's second major education-finance-reform law, the Quality Education Act of 1990 (QEA). This paper describes changes in revenues, expenditures, and programs in 11 diverse New Jersey school districts during the first year of implementation of the QEA, the school year 1991-92. The sample included three types of school districts--special needs, transition aid, and foundation aid. District-level data were collected through document analysis and interviews. Site-level data were obtained through visits to at least four schools in each district, interviews with the principal and staff, and a teacher questionnaire that yielded a 60 percent response rate. Findings indicate that the QEA helped poor urban districts make significant but incremental changes in their educational programs. In contrast, the reduction of state aid to wealthy suburban districts did not undermine educational quality. Although the QEA had a modest impact on equalizing expenditures between rich and poor districts, it did produce noticeable increases in revenues and expenditures for special-needs districts. However, substantial disparities in expenditures remain between the special-needs and transition-aid districts. Finally, increased aid given to special-needs districts did not appear to be misspent. Eleven tables and five endnotes are included. (Contains 16 references.) (LMI)