Our Amazing Young Women

Today I read about the continuing fight of Malala Yousafzai, a 14 year old Pakistani girl, shot in the head for promoting girl’s education. Hard to imagine that you risk death for wanting an education, isn’t it? There are no Taliban here to threaten our girls with

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Waiting to Move the Election Makes Sense

On September 13 Paterson Education Fund’s Board of Directors unanimously passed the following resolution: “PEF will educate citizens as to the process to move the School Board Election from April to November.  This will include issuance of a timeline, Q&A and other pertinent information.  PEF will recommend

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Ask Me!

On Wednesday June 13  at the Paterson School Board meeting, parents will once again come out to voice their dissatisfaction with  the school transformation plan.  At last week’s school board workshop, School 15 and New Roberto Clemente parents joined the discussion. They want more information about the details of

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Is it REALLY for the poor kids?

When you object to some of the new school reform agenda, people accuse you of being against the kids. “Even if our ideas aren’t perfect, some children will get educated,” they argue. I wish that was true. But the evidence is piling up that charters do not perform

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Out of the mouths of babes…

Last night the Paterson Board of Education and the community members wrestled with the latest version of Paterson’s school transformation plan. Of the more than three hours of comment and debate, the contribution of the children stands out for me. Faced with the proposed moving of the upper

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Is ALEC in our future?

Hello, ALEC. No, not a person.  A conservative think tank whose legislative agenda for education includes vouchers, the expansion of charters, tax breaks for home-schoolers and private companies building and running schools. Want to know more about ALEC? Here’s the link to the Sunday Star Ledger story.  Knowing

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Read your minutes!

Last night we shared PEF’s latest edition of the Educated Voters Guide to the School Board Elections with the School Board members. As usual, the Commissioners immediately turned to our report on their attendance. And as usual, they were surprised by the report. It looks different in

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