The School Erosion Cycle: Montclair, NJ Case Study

December 11, 2025

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At a town hall meeting in Montclair, New Jersey this September (2025), a high school senior stood up to speak.

According to The Montclair Pod’s reporting on the meeting, the student described how his soccer team had been “forced to sit on the floor to get to games” due to overcrowded buses.[1] With the district facing massive cuts, he asked Superintendent Ruth B. Turner whether athletics would be eliminated.

Turner, the report noted, “couldn’t make promises.”

What prompted this student’s question and Turner’s non-committal answer?

And more importantly, what does this mean for Montclair schools over the medium- to long-term? Can they recover, and how long will it take? (short answer: it will be hard and take a decade or two)

I answer these questions below in details, but first what is the issue in Montclair?

Note: If you are already well-versed in Montclair’s issues, skip the first section and go right to the section titled “The Mechanics of Institutional Decline (and Maybe Death)” or the case studies from other districts who had Montclair-like challenges.

Background: Montclair’s financial mismanagement

The issue stems from a $19.6 million budget shortfall that Montclair Public Schools is facing. As reported by Montclair Local in September 2025, “Interim School Business Administrator Dana Sullivan outlined $12.6 million in unbudgeted expenditures for the 2024-25 budget year and $7 million in unbudgeted expenditures in the 2025-26 budget.”[3]

The superintendent’s diagnosis was blunt. In an interview with The Montclair Pod, Turner stated that a state official “hasn’t found evidence of fraud. ‘It is really incompetence, bad accounting and administration’s inability to say no,’” she told the outlet.[5] For clarity, Turner was not at the helm when this incompetence occurred. On the same podcast, Turner noted that she and Sullivan discovered the shortfall after she began in July 2025.

The first-order impact of this budget deficit was 103 employees in the district being terminated or RIF’d. For those from the private sector, the musical chairs involved in doing this in a public school is quite interesting.

The net effect of such changes is that less senior, non-tenured staff are bumped first as those with tenure, irrespective of teaching ability or results, appear to be protected to “ensure fairness” as detailed in the screenshot below taken from an October 23, 2025 press release issued by the Montclair Public School’s Superintendent’s Office.

After these RIFs/terminations, the next big event was to be on December 9th where voters were to decide on whether to approve a tax increase. This was cancelled due to a confusing ballot.

According to Patch’s reporting in October 2025 (and prior to cancellation of the vote), “The first question would raise an additional $12.6 million from local taxpayers for the 2024-2025 school year. Approval of these extra taxes would result in a one-time increase to the district’s tax levy – estimated at $1,117 for an average Montclair home assessed at $639,000.”

The second question “would raise an additional $7.6 million for the 2025-2026 school year, which would result in a permanent increase to the district’s tax levy of $621 for the average homeowners.”[4]

It is worth noting that Montclair already has high real estate taxes averaging $21k per year.

What’s most interesting about Montclair’s crisis is its similarity to a structural trap that has ensnared dozens of American school districts.

It’s what can be described as a School Erosion Cycle.

Once triggered, it becomes nearly impossible to escape and which, even with concerted deliberate and competent effort, still requires a long time (10 years+) to escape from.

For families in Montclair or any other municipality where the School Erosion Cycle has started, it is worth paying attention to this as the implications on your kids can be profound as the timelines to improve may far exceed your child’s time in the school system,

The Mechanics of Institutional Decline (and Maybe Death)

The School Erosion Cycle typically works like this:

Stage 1: The Initial Shock

Enrollment declines for any number of reasons ranging from:

demographic shifts
deteriorating academic results or loss of special services
competition from charters or private schools
families moving for economic opportunities

According to PublicSchoolReview.com, “Montclair High School’s student population of 1,961 students has declined by 5% over five school years.”[6]

This decline alone is not catastrophic as concerted innovation on programming or higher academic attainment can be corrected (note: also not easy) but when coupled with the nearly $20 million budget deficit, this type of investment becomes difficult as the district is too busy playing defense. This combination of forces forms a dangerous cocktail.

Stage 2: The Funding Collapse

Most states fund schools on per-pupil formulas. New Jersey provides significant state aid to districts, but it’s tied to enrollment counts. When students leave, districts lose their per-pupil allocation. As one Montclair Local commenter noted in July 2025: “In 2024, our school system operates on a $160 million budget, up from $136 million in 2020. That’s a $24 million increase, despite a 5% decline in student enrollment.”[7] That type of mismatch will not continue. Funding moves with enrollment. This is a law of education funding physics.

Stage 3: The Fixed Cost Trap

Here’s where the math becomes lethal.

Losing 5% of students doesn’t reduce costs by 5%. The buildings still need heat. The debt service remains unchanged. The administrators are still under contract. The bus routes mostly stay the same.

Research on education finance shows that 70-80% of school budgets are personnel costs, but much of that is “sticky”. It is locked in by contractual obligations, minimum staffing ratios, and union collective bargaining agreements.

This isn’t a private enterprise where you can say “Revenue is down. We have to do layoffs.”

Stage 4: The Cut Pattern

Districts then respond predictably. They protect core, tenured classroom teachers. This means cuts hit:

Special education aides and specialists
Gifted and talented programs
Arts, music, and electives
Counselors, librarians, nurses
Athletic programs and after-school activities
Class sizes balloon

According to Montclair Local’s September 2025 reporting, proposed cuts under consideration include “after school clubs, athletic clubs, courtesy busing and a reduction of kindergarten to partial day.”[3]

Stage 5: The Acceleration

This is where the erosion intensifies.

These cuts disproportionately drive out families with options.

Parents of gifted students leave when enrichment disappears.
Families with special needs children leave when support evaporates.
Engaged parents leave when class sizes balloon or as academic performance declines.

What remains of the student population are higher concentrations of students with greater needs, less academic achievement, less engaged parents but fewer resources to serve them. Which triggers more cuts. Which triggers more departures.

Rinse & repeat.

The erosion cycle loop has closed. The district is caught in a vicious downward cycle.

It is worth noting that Montclair’s academic performance had already declined even prior to this budget shock.

PublicSchoolReview.com reports that “Montclair High School is ranked #1388 out of 2,184 schools, which ranks it among the bottom 50% of public schools in New Jersey.”

The site notes that “26% of students have achieved math proficiency (compared to the 36% NJ state average), while 46% of students have achieved reading proficiency (compared to the 49% NJ state average).”[6]

This is particularly peculiar given Montclair residents pay quite high local taxes.

Teacher Quality and Cuts are Unrelated

If you improve education quality and outcomes, the erosion cycle can be slowed or stopped, but here lies one of the deeper structural issues that makes escape challenging.

When personnel cuts happen, those that stay vs those who are cut is not tied to who provides the best product, i.e. education for students..

The answer, in almost every traditional district like Montclair, is determined by seniority, not performance due to union/collective bargaining agreements.

This isn’t speculation.

Just look at the announcement highlighted above.

When Montclair announced over 100 layoff notices, those decisions weren’t based on teacher effectiveness ratings, student outcomes, or program value. They followed standard “last in, first out” (LIFO) policies embedded in most collective bargaining agreements.

The pattern repeats across districts in crisis:

Newer teachers (typically younger, cheaper) go first irrespective of effectiveness and student outcomes & engagement
Expensive senior teachers with tenure stay, regardless of effectiveness
Innovative programs that might attract families back get eliminated because the school needs to focus on core academics, not “nice-to-have extras”

One Montclair parent captured the community’s frustration in a public comment reported by Montclair Local: “Are you going to look at your staff and the staff across Central Office to make sure that people are in place where their skillsets lie and not just in place because they got handed a job?”

According to the report, “Turner said, ‘You have that commitment from us.’”[7]

But the superintendent’s hands are largely tied.

State employment laws, collective bargaining agreements, and tenure protections mean that staff optimization based on skill and performance is nearly impossible once the crisis hits.

This creates a perverse outcome.

The districts most in need of dynamic, entrepreneurial problem-solving end up with the most calcified staffing structures.

Let’s consider the mechanics in a bit more detail.

When Montclair announces layoffs, they can’t simply eliminate the least effective teachers or the programs that aren’t attracting families.

Instead:

A tenured teacher whose position is eliminated can “bump” a less senior teacher in any subject area where they’re certified, even if that means displacing an excellent, popular teacher the district needs to retain.

The salary math is brutal.

One senior teacher earning $95,000 plus benefits could fund nearly two first-year teachers at $58,000.

But the district must keep the senior teacher and cut the junior ones.

The inability to pivot programming becomes paralyzing.

Want to launch a STEM magnet to attract families back? You can’t simply shift resources from declining programs because those teachers can bump into other roles. Every “reallocation” becomes another round of seniority-driven musical chairs.

When enrollment drops, you want to act swiftly to make strategic cuts, pivot programming, and retain their strongest talent regardless of tenure. You want to say “our French program isn’t attracting students, let’s launch Mandarin.”

Public districts in crisis can’t.

This isn’t an indictment of individual teachers in Montclair.

But the collective bargaining agreements that protect their interests in normal times become institutional anchors during crisis and make recovery painful as the case studies below demosntrate.

Can Districts Escape? (case studies)

The research shows that escape from this school erosion doom loop is possible, but it is rare.

It is always difficult and lengthy in duration

Below are some examples from across the country that may be instructive for Montclair or any district caught in the School Erosion Cycle..

Denair Unified School District (California)

The Complication – The Turlock Journal reported in August 2024: “In 2012, Denair Unified faced a severe fiscal crisis that left the district nearly insolvent. With a significant budget deficit threatening the closure of schools and a potential state takeover, drastic measures were taken. The district made painful cuts to staff, programs, and services, leading to widespread concern among parents, educators, and community members about the future of education in Denair. As a result, many families sought other educational options for their children. The district’s enrollment dropped from more than 1,600 to 1,250 students.”[9]

The Resolution – Denair reversed the spiral after 12 long years. The same article continues: “Fast forward to 2024, and the story of Denair Unified is one of resilience and renewal. The district has achieved financial stability, certifying a positive budget for 10 consecutive years.”

It notes that “Denair High School, which once struggled with declining enrollment and low morale, is now a thriving campus with six Career Technical Education (CTE) pathways, an innovative Project Life program for students with moderate to severe disabilities, strong student leadership, and a 100% graduation rate for the Class of 2024. Current enrollment at DHS is 311 compared to a low of 260 students in 2015-16.”[9]

What made the difference?

The article credits “strategic leadership and strong community support” and notes that “the district has transformed challenges into opportunities.”[9]

Denair rebuilt by creating new programs that gave families reasons to choose them. The CTE pathways. The innovative disability program. They didn’t just cut back to basics but invested in differentiation even during crisis.

Timeline: 12 years. While the turnaround is fantastic, this is a glacial pace for families in the system today. This means your kindergartener would experience an entirely suboptimal learning experience. This is not a sacrifice any parent should have to make.

Vallejo City Unified School District (California)

The Complication: According to CBS San Francisco “In 2004, Vallejo City Unified entered state receivership after experiencing a financial collapse. To stay operational, the district needed a $60 million emergency loan.”[10]

The Resolution: The same article reported in June 2025 that “Officials with the Vallejo City Unified School District announced they will fully regain local control two decades after a financial crisis prompted a takeover by the state.”

Timeline: 20 years to recover.

Belleville Public Schools (New Jersey)

This is just 14 minutes from Montclair offers the most relevant comparison.

The Complication: According to Patch reporting from July 2025, “The New Jersey Department of Education assigned a state monitor to oversee the financial operations of the Belleville school district in 2014 after a review of the district’s required financial audit revealed serious flaws.”

The Resolution: The article continues: “On Tuesday, Belleville Board of Education Trustee Luis Muñiz shared a letter from the New Jersey Department of Education to Thomas Egan, who has been serving as the state-appointed monitor to the district for the past decade. The letter, dated June 18, serves as formal notification that Egan’s appointment as state monitor to the Belleville School District is terminated.”[11]

Timeline: 11 years of state oversight before recovery.

Here is the pattern across successful turnarounds:

Decade to multi-decade timeframes – The rigidness of these systems make quick fixes impossible. Even “successful” recoveries take 10-20 years.
External revenue injection – Schools can’t just cut to stabilize given the impacts on enrollment so they must find new money. Property sales, lawsuit settlements, demographic shifts bringing new wealthy families, debt issuances, or major donor support.
Enrollment stabilization or reversal – This is the critical inflection point required. Denair did it by creating programs that attracted families back. Most districts never achieve this because the erosion cycle reduces education quality and funding available for experimentation making it hard to recruit new families.
Community support for sustained pain – Tax increases, program cuts, facility closures. The community has to stay committed despite years of degraded services. This is an incredibly difficult ask of parents whose children must suffer to help a school district their own kids won’t benefit from.
New leadership with genuine authority – Often through state takeover. In the Patch article about Belleville, Board of Education Trustee Muñiz stated that the state monitor “has been ‘instrumental’ in passing many initiatives in the district.”[11] But even with a state monitor having override authority, it still took 11 years.

Critically, state monitors don’t guarantee recovery.

As noted in the Montclair Girl article about the district’s crisis: “Other districts that have had state monitors reported further cuts in arts programs, sports, busing, and clubs while still having taxes increased (and a state monitor with veto power).”[2]

The monitor can try to prevent further catastrophe, but they can’t necessarily reverse the underlying enrollment decline.

Why Traditional Systems Can’t Self-Correct

Why did it take Vallejo 20 years? Why did Belleville need 11 years under state control?

The answer, as highlighted above, lies in structural rigidity which I’ll explain in more details below:

Financial rigidity: State funding formulas don’t bend for crisis. Collective bargaining agreements can’t be easily modified. Facility costs are locked in by bond obligations. Pension commitments don’t shrink with enrollment.

Staffing rigidity: As discussed, seniority rules prevent optimization. Districts can’t easily shed expensive senior staff. They can’t pivot personnel toward new programs that might attract families.

Programmatic rigidity: Once you’ve cut the “extras,” you’re left with state-mandated basics. But basics don’t differentiate you especially in a high tax community like Montclair. They don’t give families a reason to choose you over alternatives. Districts in the doom loop end up offering the least compelling product right when they most need to attract families.

Political rigidity: School boards elected by ever-smaller voting populations face political pressure to avoid closures, avoid cuts, avoid hard truths. As reported by The Montclair Pod, “Turner previously said that after a direct appeal for help, the Township of Montclair has declined to provide any financial support to the school district.”[5] Nobody wants ownership of painful decisions and to pay (via taxes) for uncertain outcomes that will take a decade or more to be visible.

Speed of response: Traditional districts move slowly. Budget cycles are annual. Labor contracts are multi-year. Board elections happen on fixed schedules. Meanwhile, enrollment decline happens continuously especially as alternatives like homeschooling, microschooling and private schools become more common and accessible. By the time governance catches up, the crisis has deepened.

The erosion cycle persists because the system is incapable of responding at the speed and scale required.

The Systemic Question

Montclair’s crisis forces an uncomfortable question:

Are enrollment-dependent institutions with high fixed costs and rigid staffing structures simply unable to survive modern education competition?

Consider the environmental factors:

Charter schools can open and close responsively
Private schools can pivot programs or merge
Families have more information and mobility than ever
Remote, hybrid and homeschool options exist
Birth rates are declining in many areas

Traditional districts face all of these pressures while operating under the aforementioned constraints that prevent rapid adaptation. None of these tools address the core problem: families are choosing to leave.

Montclair still needs to address why enrollment declined in the first place even before this crisis. And they are no longer in a financial position to do that.

Based on Belleville’s experience, Montclair families should expect state oversight to last a decade or more if that happens. And with the recent botched vote, that is looking more and more likely.

The evidence from Denair, Vallejo, and Belleville suggests that Montclair’s recovery will take 10 years+.

The student who asked about athletics deserves an answer. The honest answer is that recovery is possible, but it definitively will not happen within his high school career. And probably not in the life of any of his younger siblings.

The school erosion cycle is vicious and once started, as it has in Montclair, the road ahead is very long.

Sources

[1] The Montclair Pod, “Montclair’s $20M School Deficit Explained” (October 3, 2025) https://montclairpod.com/montclairs-20m-school-deficit-explained/

[2] Montclair Girl, “Montclair Public Schools Issue Over 100 Layoff Notices Amid $19.6 Million Budget Crisis” (October 2025) https://www.themontclairgirl.com/montclair-nj-public-schools-layoffs-budget-crisis-2025/

[3] Montclair Local, “Montclair Schools Deficit Rises to $19.6M as District Weighs Fiscal Fixes” (September 28, 2025) https://montclairlocal.news/2025/09/montclair-schools-deficit-rises-to-19-6m-as-district-weighs-fiscal-fixes/

[4] Patch, “Montclair School Board OKs Special Election For Taxpayer Bailout” (October 8, 2025) https://patch.com/new-jersey/montclair/montclair-school-board-oks-special-election-taxpayer-bailout

[5] Patch, “Montclair Tax Hike Possible Under Proposal To Fix School Budget Gap” (October 6, 2025) https://patch.com/new-jersey/montclair/montclair-homeowners-may-be-asked-fix-school-budget-gap-tax-hike

[6] PublicSchoolReview.com, “Montclair High School (Ranked Bottom 50% for 2025) – Montclair, NJ” https://www.publicschoolreview.com/montclair-high-school-profile/07042

[7] Montclair Local, “Montclair Public Schools Reveal $11 Million Deficit” (July 31, 2025) https://montclairlocal.news/2025/07/montclair-public-schools-reveal-11-million-deficit/

[8] Education Next, “The Philadelphia School District’s Ongoing Financial Crisis” (March 22, 2022) https://www.educationnext.org/philadelphia-school-districts-ongoing-financial-crisis/

[9] Turlock Journal, “Denair Unified School District’s remarkable comeback: From fiscal crisis to success” (August 31, 2024) https://www.turlockjournal.com/opinion/editorial/denair-unified-school-districts-remarkable-comeback-from-fiscal-crisis-to-success/

[10] CBS San Francisco, “Vallejo City Unified School District exiting state receivership 20 years after financial crisis” (June 24, 2025) https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/vallejo-city-unified-school-district-exiting-state-receivership-2004-financial-crisis/

[11] Patch, “State Monitor Removed From Belleville Schools, Officials Cheer For ‘Historic Victory’” (July 1, 2025) https://patch.com/new-jersey/belleville/state-monitor-removed-belleville-schools-historic-victory-trustees-say

10 responses to “The School Erosion Cycle: Montclair, NJ Case Study”

Interesting take on the situation in Montclair; thank you for your thoughts and analysis.

I postulate that the other factors involved have far-reaching impacts that you haven’t addressed; however, these are not your primary focus given your private alternative to public education. The school erosion cycle is valid, but definitively nuanced based on everything from local politics, demographics, economics, inequality, state fiscal responsibility, and charter school bias and more.

As a case study, you might want to consider some additional data.

Montclair High School ranking: The ranking you chose to use (PublicSchoolReview.com placing MHS in the bottom 50% at #1388 out of 2,184 NJ schools) is the most negative metric among rankings. Niche.com ranks MHS as an “A” grade school, #102 out of ~428 public high schools in NJ (Top 25%), and U.S. News has ranked it 95th in the top 100 NJ high schools.

While the proficiency numbers you cite (26% math) are concerning, they mirror post-pandemic trends across many peer districts and do not negate the high college acceptance rates and graduation outcomes that current families actually value.

Socio-economic: A leading indicator of enrollment decline related to housing costs and private school options. As an affluent community with average property taxes already exceeding $21,000 annually (as your article notes), housing is more unaffordable which is a high barrier to entry for young families, the primary source of kindergarten students to the district resulting in natural declines as the existing population ages.
Wealthy families are also able to exit the public system more easily, possibly triggering an exodus from public schools to private schools. This is an inequality-driven challenge, not an institutional failure.

Demographic: Silent data that is driving the narrative locally, nationally, globally. NJ is experiencing a significant decline in birth rates along with the rest of the U.S. An aging workforce where union contracts support that the newest and cheapest teachers are fired first is accurate; and, as the ratio of students to tenured staff decreases, the cost per student rises, making districts look inefficient even if the quality of the school is still high.
You acknowledge the 5% enrollment decline at Montclair High School but don’t adequately explore whether this reflects school quality or broader demographic inevitability.

Success stories you omitted: Your article focuses heavily on the inevitability of decline while minimizing examples of successful turnarounds that maintained public school structures. Newark Public Schools achieved 20% enrollment growth since 2019—the highest among 78 large U.S. urban districts—and improved test scores about 2 percentage points annually from 2022-2024, reaching a 90% high school graduation rate. Newark opened 11 new schools and earned “High Performing” designation from the state in both 2020 and 2025. This occurred despite similar challenges of enrollment pressure and fiscal stress you describe.
Newark did have a $200M in philanthropic funding and demographic tailwinds (Hispanic population influx), but it demonstrates that recovery is possible within public systems without abandoning the governance model.

Stevenson Elementary in Southfield, MI reversed dwindling enrollment from around 390 students to nearly 500 with a waitlist through community school models emphasizing family engagement, achieving 98% parent conference participation and the highest reading growth in their 13-school district.

These examples suggest the “doom loop” is actually a complex set of policy choices about investment, equity, and community commitment—not inevitable institutional death.

Your own case studies reveal nuance you downplay: Denair’s 12-year recovery succeeded not through abandoning public education but through strategic investment in CTE pathways, innovative disability programs, and dual-language immersion—creating differentiation that attracted families back. This contradicts your claim that districts “can’t pivot programming” due to union constraints.
They did pivot, within the public system, with union staff.
Similarly, Belleville’s 11-year recovery under state monitoring shows that even with oversight and constraints, improvement is achievable—the state monitor was described as “instrumental” in passing many initiatives.

State funding structures: You mention per-pupil funding formulas as creating “death spirals” but don’t explore how these are state policy choices, not inherent features of public education.
States have options: Massachusetts and other states have experimented with funding models that partially decouple from enrollment to account for fixed costs.
The pension crisis you briefly mention is largely a state responsibility—decades of underfunding created obligations that now burden local districts regardless of management quality. Framing this as a district management failure rather than a state policy failure misallocates responsibility.

Charter school realities you omit: You praise charter schools’ ability to “open and close responsively” and “pivot programs” without acknowledging that much of this flexibility comes from their ability to exclude or counsel out students with severe disabilities, behavioral challenges, or English language learning needs—the most expensive students to serve. Traditional public districts have legal obligations to serve all students. The comparison isn’t apples-to-apples, which private schools with money don’t have to deal with.

Is it really a case study? Is Montclair’s situation a case study in inevitable institutional failure, or a reality in how state funding formulas, inequality, demographic shifts, and policy choices create conditions where even well-managed districts struggle? You acknowledge the $19.6M deficit stems from “incompetence, bad accounting and administration’s inability to say no” (Superintendent Turner’s words, not systemic structure), yet you pivot immediately to structural critique. If the crisis is primarily management failure (as Turner states), why is your solution abandoning the public system rather than improving management?

Your framing suggests the former; the evidence suggests the latter is at least equally valid. The “School Erosion Cycle” may be real, but it’s not destiny—it’s a policy choice about whether we’re willing to fund equitable education through demographic transitions and temporary fiscal stress.

I’m still left wondering: why frame this as a case study in inevitable institutional failure when it could be a case study in policy choices we could change?

Your analysis criticizes public education while implicitly promoting private alternatives, but offers families no actionable path toward improvement—only an exit strategy.

For Montclair (and similar) parents who can’t afford private school or who believe in public education’s mission, that’s not analysis—it’s abandonment disguised as realism. Your exit strategy works only for the ~10% of families who can afford private tuition, while offering no actionable improvements for the 90% who remain.

Worse, when affluent families exit, they take their advocacy and civic engagement with them, accelerating the very erosion cycle you describe—a self-fulfilling prophecy that benefits private schools while dooming public ones.

Reply
1. Lots of markers of a ChatGPT response here so I’ll be brief.
  
  It’s important for parents to be clear-eyed about what they are in for and in the case of Montclair, the odds are that a quick turnaround are not likely.
  
  I’m a product of NJ public schools so I do think good public schools are vital, but I also don’t think it’s fair to ask parents to sacrifice their children because they “believe in public education’s mission”. It is the job of public education to work for families, and provide a great ‘product’. If it can’t, parents should not feel guilty if they leave (by moving to another area, by homeschooling or microschooling or going private).
  
  The breaking of the local monopoly status that schools have had for a long time might be the thing that gets them to get their act together.
  
  Your Newark example is great to see, but you omitted the decades of subpar performance before that improvement. How many generations of students suffered during those bad times?
  
  Reply
  1. Agree, Newark’s historical response was inadequate for those previous generations and they paid a hefty price which is why the recent gains matter. Despite the legacy, improvement is achievable and not doomed.
    
    Let’s build the future across public and private.
    
    I hope you can expand your vision to enable public institutions to have a path to an entrepreneurial experience like you are envisioning; create a deeper bridge not gated by tuition.
  2. 100%. I think thriving public education is necessary, and I hope Montclair figures out a way to recover well before a decade.
    
    Thank you for the thoughtful comments and engaging.
    
    Anand
You left out my admission to using AI to help my response, included in my initial response. I am human, leveraging the same data and time constraints to understand and help facilitate my understanding of issues like this.

Thank you for giving me a voice, and an honest response.

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A note about Belleville, NJ. You ask why did they remain under state-appointed monitor oversight for 11 years? Simple. It’s the rule: The monitor stays in place until the district completes repayment of the no-interest state loan. Usually 10 years. Belleville cordially terminated their state monitor (and celebrated) when they finished loan repayment.

Your overall schematic is a wise cautionary tale for us in Montclair, though.

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1. Thank you for the clarification and for reading.
  
  Reply
To emphasize your point…

You would assume the highest achieving students and the most involved families would be the first to exit, resulting in even worse school performance metrics and culture.

At the same time, not only would the costliest special education students with out of district placements remain, there would likely be an increase in more costly out of district placements as the district has to reduce staff and programming.

But a potential silver lining is that there is a non-negligible percent of families with the means to send their children to private school.

If the flight to private school is material and those families also choose to remain in Montclair, then the district will have the same funding base but less students to cover, so a much easier ability to absorb cuts in staffing. The downside is, as I mentioned above, that those going to private schools will typically be the highest achievers or the most involved families, so the performance and culture of the district may decline and mirror that of less affluent municipalities.

This may be happening, as I have heard anecdotally this is happening with MKA seeing a tripling of applications this year.

But I agree with your conclusions that, at least in the short term, if a family has young children and has the means, they should either move out of the district or send their children to private school. The uncertainty is simply too great to be willing to gamble on the education of your children.

I also think Montclair may have an opportunity to try to challenge the rigidity of the current tenure system that has been in place for 100+ years. It was established back in the early 1900s to end political favoritism, improve education quality, and protect teachers (often women) from arbitrary dismissal. This model seems to cause more harm than good today.

Reply
1. Excellent points. Thank you for sharing.
  
  On your point about the same funding base, I don’t think that is right. Note: I’m far from an expert on arcane school funding rules, but here is what I understand.
  
  In New Jersey, my understanding is that school funding under SFRA is fundamentally tied to student enrollment. The state calculates an Adequacy Budget based on weighted student counts, including grade level, poverty, and English learner status. That budget is essentially a model that represents what the state believes it should cost to educate the enrolled students.
  
  When enrollment declines, the Adequacy Budget moves with it. Over time, that translates into less state aid.
  
  The thing that might help Montclair here is that I believe the state has a 3 percent cap on annual aid reductions. This was done because government schools are hemorrhaging students so to stop the bleeding, they instituted this cap. So the decreases are capped, but that doesn’t mean funding is preserved. It simply slows the decline. If enrollment keeps falling, the formula continues to push aid down year after year.
  
  The practical outcome is not improved services for remaining students. It is mounting financial pressure, tougher tradeoffs, and continued program erosion.
  
  Note: if anyone is an expert, pls check me.
  
  I do think Montclair challenging the rigidity of tenure and collective bargaining could be transformational but would require a leader who relishes a fight and significant state support (unlikely).
  
  Houston ISD did this. The state took control of the district and put in a no nonsense leader. Still early days but some good momentum.
  
  More here on Houston’s changes: https://anandsanwal.me/houston-isd-changes-good-bad/
  
  Reply
[…] enrollment declines or unexpected deficits — recovery is rarely quick. Sanwal’s analysis of Montclair’s roughly $20 million budget gap draws on patterns seen elsewhere: fixed costs remain, while funding drops. Buildings, transportation […]

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Anand Sanwal