School Leader Features Exclusive Excerpt from New Book

School Leader Features Exclusive
Excerpt from New Book

More than a quarter century ago, Ray Abbott was a sixth grader in the city of Camden. But even today, his name is one that every school official in New Jersey knows. By alphabetical happenstance, his was the first of the plaintiffs’ names to appear on the landmark Abbott v. Burke lawsuit, which changed the direction of school funding in New Jersey.

The upcoming issue of School Leader magazine features an exclusive excerpt from a new book by Deborah Yaffe, “Other People’s Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey’s Schools.”

The book offers an in-depth look at New Jersey school funding litigation, beginning with the landmark legal decisions, Robinson v. Cahill, filed in 1970, and Abbott v. Burke, filed in 1981. Yaffe also examines the decades-long process of implementing the Abbott decision.

School Leader’s excerpt focuses on the lives of two families whose children served as plaintiffs in the lawsuits: Ray Abbott, and Liana Diaz, a Jersey City fifth grader.

Yaffe has worked as a reporter for the Asbury Park Press, the Jersey Journal, the Recorder of San Francisco, and the Gannett Statehouse bureau in Trenton. The book will be published in December by Rivergate Books, an imprint of Rutgers University Press.

Also in Leader The November/ December 2007 issue of School Leader also features an interview with Marie S. Bilik, NJSBA’s new executive director; a report on the state of arts education in New Jersey schools; and an article on legal and policy issues surrounding students’ online activities.