But it's not universal: Newark loses a relatively small $600,000 out of a nearly $1 billion budget, and Jersey City is slated to get a single dollar more.
Other districts in for significant cuts include Pemberton Township in Burlington County ($2.4 million), Winslow in Camden County ($896,000), and Washington Township in Gloucester County ($508,433).
In all, 95 districts would get less, from a cut of 13 percent down to minuscule dips.
But that is just the losers - a minority in a budget under which four out of five districts would get at least some increase.
"We see this as a good-news budget for an overwhelming number of districts," acting state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf said.
Much of it comes back to the complexities of the state aid formula under the School Funding Reform Act, a law Christie has long lambasted as too generous for so-called failing districts in cities such as Newark and Camden. He has all but ignored the formula the last two years, making steep across-the-board cuts two years ago and offering increases last year, many of them by order of the State Supreme Court in the latest Abbott v. Burke decision.
Christie is closely following at least the act's core principles in this budget, albeit with some significant and likely controversial changes that Cerf said would be phased in over five years.
The formula enacted under former Gov. Jon S. Corzine and approved by the State Supreme Court bases state aid on a complicated computation that determines a model range for spending and allots a certain amount of money per student, depending on their needs and the local districts' ability to pay.
Those different weights for different needs are critical to the math, as is how students are counted. Cerf is making changes in both those methods that would appear to provide less help than previously to districts with higher concentrations of poor and disadvantaged students.
Cerf also proposes changes in how students are counted, moving away from a single annual count on Oct. 15 to a rolling average student attendance rate. Again, that could hurt urban districts, where attendance can be problematic.
Cerf doesn't deny the changes would have a significant impact in some districts, saying he hopes they will put more focus on how money is spent rather than how much is spent.
"I'm trying to disentangle us from the idea that money buys us achievement gains," he said in an interview.
He outlined much of his philosophy and some of the math in an 83-page funding report to the Legislature.
It emphasizes Cerf's views on needed reforms in schools, involving areas including teacher effectiveness and school-turnaround strategies. With charts and graphs, Cerf repeatedly makes the argument that additional spending has not led to increased achievement.
At one point, he even raised the question of whether all at-risk students, as measured by eligibility for federal free-lunch aid, must necessarily be presumed to be educationally disadvantaged, or whether there is a better way to measure. (His report didn't answer the question, instead only recommending a task force to study it.)
Cerf also proposed significant changes in how the state distributes "adjustment aid," a $570 million account this year that was allocated among more than 150 districts in an effort to cushion cuts.
Under the fiscal 2013 budget, the sum will be reduced to $555 million, with more reductions to come.
The cut will hit some urban districts hard, but also those in more rural areas that either spend more than deemed adequate, have declining enrollment, or both. Those include scores of districts in Sussex, Cape May, and Burlington Counties, some where the adjustment aid is as much as half of overall aid.
"This is exactly why we need a new funding formula that is balanced and accountable," said State Sen. Steve Oroho (R., Sussex). "Dozens of our local school districts are now among about 185 suburban and rural districts shortchanged from receiving basic aid, leaving them faced with potential increases in already too costly property taxes."
Criticism also came from those representing urban schoolchildren, but for different reasons. They said the adjustments in the weights would only hurt schools serving at-risk students. The report will go next to the Legislature, which will decide whether to approve the weight adjustments.
"By lowering the weights, you are shortchanging these kids," said David Sciarra, director of the Education Law Center, which has led the Abbott v. Burke litigation. "These are radical changes that need to be rejected."
The reaction was one of relief, if not applause, from the representatives of suburban districts that have long felt shortchanged by the state's funding.
"Seeing not only the plus column next to our members, but also the echo of an improved aid picture for the suburbs in the future, feels good," read an e-mail from Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, a group of more than 100 suburban districts. "It has been a long time."
Read more of John Mooney's education stories at www.njspotlight.com.
