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

School Discipline

DeVos Will Recommend the Removal of Civil Rights Protections for Students of Color

Any day now we’re going to hear the news that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration are removing guidance meant to reduce racist discipline practices that run rampant in...

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Special Education

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 that protects our most disenfranchised students. First, it was...

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Special Education

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 for Americans (and aspiring Americans) during the tenure of...

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Charter Schools

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 youngest sister. Carla, I’m told, was difficult from birth, more moody and unhappy...

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Parents

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 Heights public school that talks a...

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IEP

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 handful of other relatives work as teachers and education issues have dominated...

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