Tractenberg leads the fight for educational equality
Archived article from Oct 12, 2001
By Irene O'Brien
While New Jersey residents are among the wealthiest in the country, the public education systems in the state's cities have been sorely lacking. For more than 30 years, Paul Tractenberg, the Alfred C. Clapp Public Service Professor of Law at the School of Law-Newark, has been fighting for an equal education for all of New Jersey's children. In 1973, he founded and directed the Education Law Center, which serves as the voice of the state's urban schoolchildren. His latest endeavor, the Institute on Education Law and Policy, is an interdisciplinary research center created to analyze and find ways to improve public education in urban areas.
Although the institute is less than a year old, it has already held a highly successful national invitational conference, which explored the impact of school choice on urban reform, and convened a meeting of national leaders to explore legal strategies for increasing early childhood educational opportunities, especially for disadvantaged youngsters.
Under a $225,000 contract from the New Jersey Department of Education, the institute is also conducting a study of the state's takeover of the Newark, Jersey City and Paterson school districts. "Ultimately, we will provide specific recommendations for reestablishing local control in Newark," Tractenberg said.
Other projects under way include a study of how New Jersey can improve its educational data system to monitor district, school and student performance, and a study on "pockets of educational excellence." The institute is collaborating with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences-Newark and the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies.
The institute has received $40,000 in Strategic Resource and Opportunity Analysis (SROA) funds from the university, $40,000 from the Cornwall Center and $30,000 from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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