N.J.
asks to aid urban schools through districtwide
approach
Friday, October 15, 2004 • BY KEVIN C.
DILWORTH AND JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff
The state's efforts to improve its most troubled urban
schools should expand from focusing on just individual
schools to instead pursuing broader, districtwide
improvements, Gov. James E. McGreevey said yesterday.
Under the urban school reforms ordered by the state
Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke rulings, the state in the
last year has sought to go into the lowest-performing
schools one at a time to improve their programs.
But at a stop at the new Main Street School in Orange
yesterday, McGreevey said gains in Asbury Park, Orange and
Pleasantville have shown that a wider approach can bring
even more success.
Yesterday, he announced his administration filed a
motion with the state Supreme Court to modify how the state
should assist its poorest school districts. "These programs
are the central focus of our efforts to improve student
achievement in the Abbott districts," he said.
New Jersey needs "to focus on what works and what works
well," McGreevey told about 400 students, teachers, school
board members and city officials who gathered to hear him in
the gymnasium of the new pre-K-8 facility at Main and
Cleveland streets.
Gains in language arts test scores, including as high as
20 percent in some schools in Asbury Park, Orange and
Pleasantville, "represent historic highs in terms of
literacy achievement," McGreevey told the crowd. "This is
critically important."
However, "we need to apply the strategies that work for
some districts to all of them," he said. "We simply cannot
grapple with our challenges on a school-by-school
basis."
To that end, McGreevey said, the court papers asked the
state Supreme Court to amend its June 2003 order and
mediation agreement and allow the state Department of
Education to use a districtwide philosophy in tackling
literacy concerns.
"Our goal must be academic excellence and parity, and
not just financial parity," McGreevey said, referring to a
series of landmark Abbott vs. Burke reforms that spell out
how the state's 30 poorest school districts should be aided
with special funding.
David Sciarra, lead attorney for the Education Law
Center, which brought the first Abbott suit, said he could
not yet judge the merits of the state's proposed approach.
He said he would ask the court to return this proposal to
mediation to work out the details.
"I think this is the type of issue that really requires
a collaborative effort between the parties to try to resolve
what are many complex pieces, similar to the way we reached
this agreement initially," he said.
During McGreevey's talk in Orange, the governor
repeatedly emphasized the need for youngsters to give up
watching too much television in their spare time and instead
focus on reading their favorite books and subject
matter.
Michelle LaRose, 12, a sixth- grader at the Main Street
School, said she and her peers were energized by McGreevey's
message about reading more books.
"Early literacy is key, and he (McGreevey) is right,"
said Julie Glazer, an academic facilitator at the school,
who added that she agreed with the governor's philosophy of
urging more reading and promoting literacy.
Glazer said, "Reading is a gauge of success."
© 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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