New Jersey has one of the most progressive education laws in the country — the Abbott v. Burke case produced several rulings requiring the state to equalize public education funding for all students, meaning that poor, urban districts must receive the same relative amount of funding as wealthy suburban districts. Abbott vs. Burke requirements have been characterized as “one of the most remarkable and successful efforts by any court in the nation to cut an educational break for kids from poor families and generally minority-dominated urban neighborhoods.”

Today, a judge found that Gov. Chris Christie (R) violated Abbott v. Burke requirements when he slashed $820 million in state aid to schools last year, because the cuts were slanted too heavily towards poor districts:

Judge Peter Doyne, who was appointed as special master in the long-running Abbott vs. Burke school funding case, today issued an opinion that also found the reductions “fell more heavily upon our high risk districts and the children educated within those districts.”

“Despite spending levels that meet or exceed virtually every state in the country, and that saw a significant increase in spending levels from 2000 to 2008, our ‘at risk’ children are now moving further from proficiency,” he said.

“The difficulty in addressing New Jersey’s fiscal crisis and its constitutionally mandated obligation to educate our children requires an exquisite balance not easily attained,” Doyne wrote. “Something need be done to equitably address these competing imperatives. That answer, though, is beyond the purview of this report. For the limited question posed to the Master, it is clear the State has failed to carry its burden.“

As the article notes, Judge Doyne was appointed as a “special master” in this case, and so his finding today will go back to the state Supreme Court, which can choose to act on it. This seems likely to happen. “A special master’s report like this carries great weight with the higher court,” said David Sciarra, the executive director of the Education Law Center. “The evidence was exhaustive, detailed thorough and its conclusions are sobering about the impact of the funding cuts on students across the state, particularly poor students, regardless of where they live.”

Christie has not yet responded to the finding. If he is required by the state Supreme Court to find more funding to at-risk districts, perhaps the governor could reconsider some of his proposed tax cuts for corporations and millionaires.

Earlier this year, likely GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said he would support reinstating the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and cutting funding off to implement the repeal. Now, his potential rival Mike Huckabee is following suit. Speaking to the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, Huckabee said that he too would support re-imposing the ban against open service by gays and lesbians:

“I would — because that’s really what the military wants,” says Huckabee. “There’s been some talk that the military is fine with having same-sex orientation people. But if you really surveyed the combat troops, that is not at all the case.”

According to Huckabee, currently a political analyst for Fox News, politicians should back out of the picture. “…I don’t think that these are decisions that politicians should make. These are decisions that soldiers should make,” he says emphatically. “And when the soldiers in the foxholes make the decisions, they choose something different — and we should listen to them.”

A majority of servicemembers who participated in the Pentagon’s survey — upwards of 70% — didn’t believe that gay troops would undermine unit morale or cohesion. The study’s co-chairs argued that combat units expressed a more negative view about open service (40–60% in the Marine Corps and in various combat arms specialties) because of inexperience with gay servicemembers.

“One of the factors that causes a difference in the Army and the Marine Corps combat arms responses when compared to the overall responses is that we find in those two communities, Army and Marine Corps combat arms, — and this is probably unsurprising — that those communities have lower rates of actual experience of having served alongside a gay or lesbian servicemember,” the study co-chair Army Gen. Carter F. Ham explained last year. “We did find in the survey that there is a difference between servicemembers who have and those who have not served with gay and lesbian servicemembers. And I think this may be one of the significant contributors to the differences between combat arms responses and the force overall,” he added.

Ham also rebuffed Huckabee’s suggestion that combat troops should decide the policy outcome. “I can’t think of a good outcome that comes out of that,” he said, adding, “We don’t poll the force about potential military operations. We didn’t poll the army that says, you know, do you agree with 12 or 15 month-long combat tours.”

Finally, it’s unclear how reinstating the policy would work operationally. Reimposing DADT would require gay servicemembers who come out after repeal is certified to suddenly go back into the closet or face discharge. Straight soldiers would also have to pretend they did not know about the sexual orientation of formerly-out gay members. (HT: JoeMyGod)

Last November, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) won a decisive 18 point victory in his race for the governor’s mansion. Yet after less than three months of draconian budget proposals and unconstitutional assaults on collective bargaining, Snyder is hurting. A new poll finds that Snyder would lose his election if it were held today, and that a strong plurality of the state would support amending the state constitution to prevent Snyder from continuing his anti-union agenda:

Snyder’s also earned the ire of the voters because of the perception that he’s targeting collective bargaining rights. 59% of folks in Michigan think that public employees should have the right to collective bargaining while only 32% are opposed, and 49% of voters even favor a state constitutional amendment to guarantee collective bargaining rights while 37% are opposed to such a measure. While union households are obviously the most supportive of collective bargaining, nonunion households support it by a 53/39 margin as well so the voters Snyder is antagonizing on this issue go beyond who you might expect.

As ThinkProgress previously explained, Michigan voters can amend the state constitution by petition and referendum. Just 10 percent of the electorate can place an amendment protecting collective bargaining on the ballot, and a simple majority of the electorate can turn it into law.