Chapter 30: New Jersey

Since 1973, the New Jersey supreme court has handed down a series of decisions in an effort to uphold the state’s constitutional requirement of a ‘thorough and efficient’ system of public education for all students. In Robinson v. Cahill¹ the court determined that the system of financing public education in New Jersey was unconstitutional. Since this original case, the state’s high court has repeatedly imparted numerous rulings, variously known as the Abbott²decisions, to provide all students in New Jersey with equal access to quality public education. During that time, the court better defined what a thorough and efficient education really means.