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Abbott Districts: Better Funding, Better Achievement
March 16, 2006
Gordon MacInnes assistant commissioner, Abbott district
Fred Carrigg special assistant, Urban Literacy, Union City
Ronald Ferguson faculty director, Achievement Gap Initiative, Harvard

The Harvard Graduate School of Education hosts a forum focusing on New Jersey's Abbott Districts, where state aid, resulting from thirty years of legal challenges, makes average per pupil spending higher now than it is in the state's suburbs. This increase in spending highlights the link between better funding and academic achievement. Can whole school systems be transformed to close achievement gaps? Does money matter? Thirty little-known Abbott Districts in New Jersey are the nation's leading response. The Abbott and Union City stories are not well known, but have national implications.

This forum features Gordon MacInnes, Assistant Commissioner for Abbott Implementation, and Fred Carrigg, Special Assistant to the Commissioner for Urban Literacy, who helped move Union City from the second lowest-performing system in New Jersey to the highest among the state's larger systems. Ronald Ferguson, Lecturer in Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, moderates.

Education
Achievement Gap | Classroom & Community | Education Reform | Literacy & Testing | Race
WGBH
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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Image of In Plain Sight: Simple, Difficult Lessons from New Jersey's Expensive Effort to Close the Achievement Gap
Author: Gordon MacInnes
Publisher: Century Foundation Press (2009)
Binding: Paperback, 129 pages
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