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For More Information Contact the Public Information Office:
    Ron Rice
    Kathryn Forsyth, Director
    609-292-1126

For Release: May 11, 2005

DOE Workshop Spotlights New Jersey Schools’ Efforts to Close Achievement Gap

Focusing on the need to improve achievement for all students, the New Jersey Department of Education’s Northern Region Office and Passaic County Community College will sponsor a workshop titled "Closing the Achievement Gap" on Tuesday, May 24 at the Shea Center at William Paterson University in Wayne.

At break-out sessions during the day, representatives from thirty districts and individual schools will make presentations on the successful, school-based, results-orientated strategies and practices they have developed and employed to close the achievement gap.

The link below lists all of the participating schools and school districts:
http://www.nj.gov/njded/news/2005/0511gap_a.htm

Jonathan Kozol, a highly regarded expert on racial and education issues, will be the keynote speaker at the workshop.

Kozol, who has spent his career chronicling the plight of the achievement gap across

racial, student and teacher lines, is the author of numerous books, including Amazing Grace and Savage Inequalities. The Chicago Sun-Times once called him, "Today’s most eloquent spokesman for the disenfranchised."

The deadline for registration for the conference is Monday, May 16. To register or for more information, please contact Meredith Coticchio in the Northern Region Office at (973) 655-2115 or go online at http://www.nj.gov/njded/events/gap/.

"Closing the Achievement Gap" is the final workshop in a series of six professional development sessions sponsored by the DOE’s Northern Region. They began in January (see link to press release at http://www.state.nj.us/njded/news/2005/0119pd.htm).