Laura Waters

Laura Waters is the founder and managing editor of New Jersey Education Report, formerly a senior writer/editor with brightbeam. Laura writes about New Jersey and New York education policy and politics. As the daughter of New York City educators and parent of a son with special needs, she writes frequently about the need to listen to families and ensure access to good public school options for all. She is based in New Jersey, where she and her husband have raised four children. She recently finished serving 12 years on her local school board in Lawrence, New Jersey, where she was president for nine of those years. Early in her career, she taught writing to low-income students of color at SUNY Binghamton through an Educational Opportunity Program.

Posts By Laura Waters

Student Voice

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, and—most critically—poor student outcomes. But it just may be...

Special Education

Watching DeVos Makes Me Nervous for All the Children Like My Son Who Have Special Needs

I’ve tried to be open-minded about Trump’s nominee for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos. Many people I respect view her as a potentially powerful voice for school choice and, I reasoned, at least...

Charter Schools

Even Critics Have to Acknowledge When Charter Schools Are Working

I am typically a fierce critic of Professor Bruce Baker but recently I found myself in the delightful position of praising his scholarship. Not all of it, mind you, and I’ll get to that. In his new...

New York

It’s Hard to See the Progress in Bill de Blasio’s School Reforms Because There’s Been None

In January 2013, just before Bill de Blasio was sworn in for his first term as New York City’s mayor, a reporter asked him what he wanted his legacy to be. He replied that he wanted to be known as “...

Charter Schools

The Key to Charter School Success Is Collaboration With District Schools

The dominant theme of Richard Whitmire’s book The Founders is that the top quintile of public charter school operators are remarkably open to collaboration with traditional and alternative school...

New York

Can We Really Give a High School a 'Fair' Grade If Only 5% of Students Are Ready for College?

Many New York City parents are familiar with the “renewal school” program which, according to the Department of Education, represents a “call to action” to fix the city’s 94 lowest-performing schools...

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