With generous support from the Victoria Foundation and the Schumann Fund for New Jersey, the Education Law Center (ELC) is working to develop a manual to facilitate the effective implementation of Abbott programs and reforms at the school and district levels. The purpose of the manual is to provide school management teams, central office staff, and others with a comprehensive guide to the legal requirements, latest research, and effective strategies for implementation of each of the Abbott remedies.

Each substantive area of Abbott will be covered in chapters. The eight chapters include:

	1. Standards Based Reform (draft version now available as a PDF file)		5. Supplemental Programs
	2. Parent and Community Involvement		6. School Facilities
	3. School Based Management		7. Special Education
	4. Early Childhood Education		8. Bilingual Education

As each chapter is completed, it will be posted on our website in draft form. Once each chapter has been through a thorough external review and editing process, final copies will be printed and distributed. If you would like to be notified as the chapters are posted on the ELC website, please email Tia Sheree Gaynor at tsgaynor@edlawcenter.org.

This is an exciting time for the people involved in Abbott implementation. The new Governor has expressed a commitment to collaboration and consensus building, and for the first time there is real promise that effective and timely implementation of Abbott may well be on the horizon. It’s early days in this relationship, but parties are working together where in the past, their relationship was largely adversarial. In February 2002, the Governor signed an executive order establishing the Abbott Implementation and Compliance Coordinating Council. This council is responsible for identifying reform priorities, evaluating state regulations, ensuring full and effective implementation of all Abbott programs, assessing progress, and resolving disputes along the way.

In addition, several workgroups are in the process of outlining policy and implementation revisions for the Abbott remedies. It would appear that parties to this process are in agreement that schools cannot do the work of standards based instructional improvement alone, and the wheels are in motion to establish better lines of communication and support between the state, districts and individual schools to ensure that educators receive the assistance and resources needed to get the job done. The state will require that schools take a hard look at what they need, and will finally look to and support districts as active participants in schools’ improvement efforts.

Change is rarely easy, but in this case, policy and regulation changes promise to bring good results in what we hope will be the not too distant future. As new policies are implemented, and as regulations pertaining to schools and districts change, this guide and the tools it contains will be updated accordingly.