IMPROVING LEARNING AND LITERACY IN ABBOTT CLASSROOMS

Announcements:
»	DOE Releases Reviews of State-Operated Districts and Camden 1/30/07 - The results of the performance audits conducted in the Jersey City, Paterson, Newark and Camden School Districts are now available on the New Jersey Department of Education web site, Commissioner Lucille E. Davy announced today. The audits, which were ordered by the New Jersey Supreme Court last year, included assessments of the quality of the internal controls in key areas in each district, along with analyses of historical expenditures and a review of selected purchase orders. They were prepared by auditors from KPMG LLP in New York. Camden | Jersey City | Paterson | Newark
»	NJAC 6A:10, Financing Foundational and Demonstrably Needed Programs and Services in Abbott School Districts
»	Improving Standards-Driven Instruction and Literacy and Increasing Efficiency in Abbott School Districts
»	The 2007 Appropriations Act required the Department of Education to publicly post the following documents: the operating budget for the Division of Abbott Implementation, the plans for evaluating the academic effectiveness of Abbott districts, the first steps the Department is taking in developing benchmarks and indicators to judge the progress of each of the 31 Abbott districts. The latter two documents were developed with the participation of various stakeholders including researchers/scholars, representatives of the Education Law Center, urban superintendents, principals, teachers, and community organizations.  These links provide the required information.  The budget is presented as a spreadsheet with a separate “notes” to clarify some of the expenditures. Abbott Evaluation Plan Abbott Benchmarks Abbott Budget Abbott Budget Notes

The Department of Education is committed to the dual goals of ensuring that all students in Abbott districts, including English language learners and special education students, are able to read at grade level by the end of third grade and will achieve mastery of the Core Curriculum Content Standards. The initial focus of the department is to ensure that each elementary school is implementing an Intensive Early Literacy Program, a quality preschool program for three- and four-year-old children, and an intensive mathematics program. High-performing schools will be allowed to select another whole school reform model or implement a whole school reform alternative design. Low-performing schools will be assessed by a performance team to be convened by the department and the districts. The team will identify obstacles to student achievement and develop an agreement with the school to address identified obstacles. The work in middle and high schools will be shaped by the recommendations provided by a workgroup consisting of educators from Abbott districts, as well as other leaders in the school community.

The department will collaborate with districts, schools, institutions of higher education, community representatives and other organizations to implement in Abbott districts other reforms that are effective, efficient and consistent with the decisions of the New Jersey Supreme Court in Abbott v. Burke and the No Child Left Behind Act.