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ALAN R. SADOVNIK RETURNS TO ADELPHI UNIVERSITY TO DELIVER THE ROBERT F. AND AUGUSTA FINKELSTEIN MEMORIAL LECTURE
 Adelphi University welcomes back esteemed former professor and dean of the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education, and current Rutgers University professor of education, sociology, and public affairs, Alan R. Sadovnik, as he presents "The Limits and Possibilities of Urban School Improvement: Lessons from the Inner City," the Robert F. and Augusta Finkelstein Memorial Lecture. The event will take place on Tuesday, October 20, 2009, at 6:30 p.m. in the Adelphi University Performing Arts Center (AU PAC), Concert Hall, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY. The event is free and open to the public.
Dr. Sadovnik’s research objectives center on sociology of education, urban educational policy, and the history of progressive education. Along with his role as university professor, he maintains the positions of associate director of the Institute on Education Law and Policy, and coordinator of the Urban Educational Policy Track in the Ph.D. in urban systems at Rutgers.
He received the Willard Waller Award in 1993 from the American Sociological Association, and his work was recognized by the American Educational Studies Association, earning him the Critics Choice Award for 1995, 2000, and 2002.
Dr. Sadovnik has authored Equity and Excellence in Higher Education, co-authored Exploring Education: An Introduction to the Foundations of Education, the History of Schools and Schooling series, the Palgrave Series in Urban Education, and the Schooling Around the World series, among others. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 1983.
A full copy of the article and Professor Sadovnik's presentation's PPT are available at http://ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/Alan_Lecture.pdf http://ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/AlanLecture.ppt
PROFESSOR IS NEW JERSEY'S EDUCATION LAW DEAN
 Paul Tractenberg has been called the father of school equity in New Jersey, its dean, and even,by one writer, its all-knowing Yoda. Starting as a young law professor at Rutgers Law School in the early 1970s, he founded the Education Law Center in Newark, the lead player in the longest-running school finance case in the nation, Abbott v. Burke. As the center’s first director and sage advisor, he has argued and consulted in the case before the state Supreme Court, helping to bring billions in dollars and sweeping reforms to New Jersey’s urban schools. For close to 40 years, the New Jersey State Bar Association member has represented much of the intellect, if not the heart, behind the landmark decisions.“ There were many builders (of Abbott) along the way, but "Paul has always been its architect," said Lawrence Lustberg, a law center board member and longtime ally. A full copy of the article is available at: http://ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/NJPaul.pdf
TRACTENBERG,SADOVNIK: EDUCATION
Without a world-class public education for all our nation's children, we face decline and disaster. Paul L. Tractenberg and Alan R. Sadovnik are the board of governors distinguished service professor of law and professor of education, sociology and public affairs at Rutgers, Newark, respectively, where they are co-directors of the Institute on Education Law and Policy. BARACK OBAMA assumes the presidency facing extraordinary challenges. We understand that some may be more dramatic and appear more pressing than the status of American education. But for a half century we have understood that education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. In today's global world, the federal government, too, has awesome educational responsibilities. Without a world-class public education for all our nation's children, we face decline and disaster, not by terrorist act or stock market collapse, but by steady, incremental, inexorable erosion of our national capacity to produce and to compete. We could write a book on how our education system falls short, and what the president could do about it. Instead, we focus briefly on what President Obama can do immediately to begin addressing three linked national problems with important symbolic as well as tangible aspects: * Inequality of educational opportunity. Despite decades of efforts, mainly through state courts, to equalize educational funding within individual states, most states still have serious inequality, harming mainly poor and disadvantaged children. There is an equally severe problem of educational inequality that has received less attention — resource and educational differences among states. Just as we have first-class and second-class educational citizens within states, we have first-class and second-class states. A full copy of the report is available at: http://ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/Op-ed.pdf
ABBOTT RULING: A RETURN TO THE BAD OLD DAYS(04/09/2009)
WHEN I TELL colleagues from other countries that schools in most low-income neighborhoods in the United States receive significantly less funding than schools in affluent neighborhoods, they are perplexed. Why, they ask, would children with the greatest educational needs receive less than children with the greatest advantages? In most other Western democracies, it is exactly the opposite. Because of Abbott v. Burke, New Jersey has defied this unfortunate and inexplicable national pattern. Students in our 31 special needs urban districts — the Abbott districts — receive funding at the levels of the state’s most affluent districts, and have a variety of programs designed to overcome their poverty and educational disadvantage. That may change, however, if the New Jersey Supreme Court were to adopt Judge Peter E. Doyne’s recent recommendations. Judge Doyne, serving as a special master, has concluded that the state’s new school funding law, the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA), should be found constitutional so long as supplemental funding continues to be available to the Abbott districts for at least three more years. Such a decision could reverse Abbott’s extraordinary gains and return New Jersey to the bad old days, when at-risk children failed to receive the resources and programs necessary for them to achieve at the levels required in the 21st century. A full copy of the report is available at: http://ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/Abbottruling.pdf
REPORT ON SHARED SERVICES NOW AVAILABLE (11/26/2007)
The Institute on Education Law and Policy and the New Jersey School Boards Association are pleased to announce the release of Shared Services in School Districts: Policies, Practices and Recommendations, a major study on shared services in four New Jersey counties. The report focuses on cooperative activities among school districts, municipalities and county governments in four New Jersey counties: Bergen, Burlington, Essex and Somerset. It discusses the extent to which school districts share services, the benefits of shared services, and best practices. It also recommends changes in law and regulation to further promote shared services among school districts and local government. The concept of shared services is expected to be a critical component of school district and local government finance due to recent laws that emanated from the state Legislature’s special session on property tax reform and the establishment of a new school funding formula. Lead researchers will report the study’s findings and recommendations, including initiatives by the state and local school districts at a press conference, to be held at the State House in Trenton on Tuesday, November 27 at 11:30 a.m. in Room 109. For further information about the news conference, contact the Institute on Education Law and Policy at (973) 353-5216 or the NJSBA Communications Department at (609) 278-5202. A full copy of the report and related documents is available at http://ielp.rutgers.edu/projects/sharedservices.
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