Closing the Achievement Gap Through Additional Funding, High-Quality Instruction, and a Focus on Early Literacy

Lessons from New Jersey Districts

April 7, 2009, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Since 2002, the New Jersey State Department of Education has partnered with city school districts in an attempt to close the achievement gap between poor, minority students in urban districts and their counterparts in the predominantly white, affluent suburban districts. Created as a result of the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court case Abbott v. Burke, the program provided generous funding to improve educational outcomes in poor districts. Many of the state’s poorest school districts made dramatic progress by focusing on high-quality instruction and introducing effective early literacy practices.

Please join the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation for a discussion of the book In Plain Sight, Simple, Difficult Lessons from New Jersey's Expensive Effort to Close the Achievement Gap by Gordon MacInnes. The author and our expert panelists will discuss the lessons learned by these districts as well as the implications for state and federal policy.