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New Jersey A.G. Moves to Terminate Long-Pending
Abbott Litigation
Seeking to end one of the
longest pending education adequacy suits
in the nation, Anne Milgram, Attorney General
of the state of New Jersey, filed a hard-hitting
motion on March 17, which claims that the
School Funding Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA)
addresses the constitutional deficiencies
the Court identified in its past decisions.
The motion specifically asks the Court to
eliminate all of the precise remedies that
it has ordered over the past decade (except
for the outstanding capital funding requirement
that the state has promised to address in
the near future) including parity funding
with affluent districts, needs-based supplemental
funding, and mandatory pre-school for all
3 and 4 year olds, on the ground that the
32 urban districts covered by the Abbott
order will get sufficient funding under
the new formula to meet all of these needs.
The state also argues that the formula guarantees
sufficient funding to meet the needs of
at-risk children in districts not covered
by the Abbott decree. These children
who now constitute almost half of the at-risk
students in the state, constituted less
than 30% of the at-risk students when the
Abbott case was filed in the mid-‘80s.
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Assessing Achievement Gaps Comprehensively
The
problem with a “what-gets-measured-gets-done”
approach is that “what doesn’t
get measured doesn’t get done,”
says Richard Rothstein, Research Associate
at the Economic Policy Institute and Senior
Researcher at the Campaign for Educational
Equity. “Reassessing the Achievement
Gap: Fully Measuring What Students Should
be Taught in School,” was the second
equity forum convened by the Campaign for
Educational Equity at Teachers College,
Columbia University on February 21, 2008.
Rothstein presented a report co-authored
by Rebecca Jacobsen, an assistant professor
at Michigan State University, and Tamara
Wilder, a doctoral student at Teachers College.
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More Evidence of Adequacy Cases
Leading to Improvements in Student Achievement
After
years of court oversight the Arkansas Supreme
Court ruled in 2007 that Arkansas schools
had achieved constitutional compliance.
A recent report from Arkansas Advocates
for Children and Families, “Education
in the Post Lake-View Era: What
is Arkansas Doing to Close the Achievement
Gap?" evaluates the state’s progress
toward equity over the past six years since
the 2002 Lake View decision. It
concludes that following “intense
attention” after Lake View,
Arkansas has taken major steps to improve
curricular standards, teacher quality, school
facilities, and early education programs.
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ACLU Tests New Adequacy Theory in Florida
Case
In
filing a challenge to the education services
being provided to poor and minority children
in Florida under that state’s new
education adequacy clause, the plaintiffs
in Schroeder et al v. Palm Beach Co
Sch. Bd et al, represented by the ACLU
and other attorneys, are testing a new wrinkle
on the adequacy theory: dismal graduation
rates in and of themselves constitute a
constitutional violation. “If Palm
Beach Country is not graduating a third
or more of its students, it is by definition
providing an inadequate education,”
said Chris Hansen, a senior staff attorney
with the ACLU. Read
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Educational Equity Requires School Reform
- and More
“After
seeing the impressive and powerful cross-section
of advocates, researchers, and policymakers
at the summit, there can be no doubt a movement
is building—and gaining strength every
day,” says Angela Glover Blackwell,
founder and CEO of PolicyLink, a Calilfornia-based
advocacy organization. The movement to which
she is referring to is the regional equity
movement, a multifaceted approach to reform
based on contributions from different fields
and collaboration of different sectors.
This idea radiated throughout the recent
"Regional Equity Summit" that
PolicyLink convened in New Orleans on March
5-7 2008. Read
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