Product Description

In 1981, when Raymond Abbott was a twelve-year-old sixth-grader in Camden, New Jersey, poor city school districts like his spent 25 percent less per student than the states wealthy suburbs did. That year, Abbott became the lead plaintiff in a landmark class-action lawsuit demanding that the state provide equal funding for rich and poor schools. Over the next twenty-five years, as the non-profit law firm representing the plaintiffs won ruling after ruling from the New Jersey Supreme Court, Abbott dropped out of school, fought a cocaine addiction, and spent time in prison before turning his life around.Raymond Abbotts is just one of the many human stories that have too often been forgotten in the policy battles New Jersey has waged for two generations over equal funding for rich and poor schools. , the first book to tell the story of this decades-long school funding battle, interweaves the public storyan account of legal and political wrangling over laws and moneywith the private stories of the inner-city children who were named plaintiffs in the states two school funding lawsuits, and . Although these cases have shaped New Jerseys fiscal and political landscape since the 1970s, most recently in legislative arguments over tax reform, the debate has often been too abstract and technical for most citizens to understand. Written in an accessible style and based on dozens of interviews with lawyers, politicians, and the plaintiffs themselves, crystallizes the arguments and clarifies the issues for general readers.Beyond its implications for New Jersey, this book is an important contribution to the conversations taking place in all states about the nations responsibility for its poor, and the role of public schools in providing equal opportunities and promising upward mobility for hard-working citizens, regardless of race or class.