Laura Waters
Blogger
Blogger, Parent, School Board Member
Lawrence Township, New Jersey
Featured Blog: NJ Left Behind
RECENT POSTS
Posted Oct. 24, 2018
Transgender Students Are Next Up in the Trump Administration’s Threat to Roll Back Civil Rights Protections
Imagine with me: One early morning my son Jonah lopes through the high school halls, high-fiving students from the marching…
Posted Sep. 5, 2018
Betsy DeVos on the Verge of Removing Civil Rights Protections for Students of Color
Let’s just call her Betsy DeVoid. Our secretary of education earns a name-change because of her predilection for voiding guidance…
Posted July 2, 2018
DeVos Is Stripping Away Civil Rights Protections for Students With Special Needs
I’m detecting a trend. Recently, The Atlantic ran a piece that catalogues the Trump administration’s disregard of civil rights protections…
Posted May 31, 2018
My Sister’s Battle With Severe Mental Illness Taught Me Never to Stand for Pretense
My parents, Jerry and Emily, had three daughters. I’m the oldest, followed by Carla two years later, and then my…
Posted Mar. 16, 2018
What Happens When Even the ‘Best’ Neighborhood School Treats Its Students With Disabilities Horribly?
The New York Post recently profiled Wesley Clark, a 9-year-old fourth-grader at PS 8 in Brooklyn Heights. The article describes a “supposedly progressive Brooklyn…
Posted Mar. 8, 2018
Coffee Break: Why Mark Rynone Left Corporate to Help Kids With Special Needs
Mark Rynone considers his passion for education as an outgrowth of family values. After all, his mother, brother and a…
Posted Dec. 12, 2017
New Jersey Skated by for Years on Misleading Graduation Rates, But Now It’s Closing the ‘Honesty Gap’
Does it seem odd to you that we’re celebrating the fact that half of New Jersey’s third-graders are at or…
Posted Nov. 9, 2017
The Votes Are In: New Jersey’s Teachers Union Really Blew It
The leaders of New Jersey’s primary teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), have egg on their faces. In…
Posted July 5, 2017
It’s Going to Be a Lot Harder to Shade Newark Public Schools With These Graduation Rates
It’s easy to be skeptical about improvements to Newark Public Schools (NPS), given its sordid history of corruption, desultory oversight,…
Posted June 13, 2017
Jared’s Got Something Special and KIPP’s ‘Pathways’ Is Helping Him Show It
Eight-year-old Jared Teel-Drayton hops into the room, hands flapping, eyes darting, smile alight. He’s been painting—his class went to the…
