This day, April 29, 2008, I spot a front page headline in my local New Jersey paper, The Trenton Times that reads: Students kept off ballot: District to explore race factor while rescheduling vote Our local races for school board took place last week, so I thought this was an aftermath

On April 17, I checked my inbox and found a message from a reader who had read the previous day's column on the JP Morgan/Chase decision to discontinue lending to schools with historically low repayment rates I had pointed out that Chase's spokesperson refused to list the affected schools, but that borrowers deserved to know

On April 16, JP Morgan/Chase Manhattan, the bank that recently worked with the Fed to acquire the former Bear Stearns investment bank, announced that they will not be making student loans to entering or continuing students enrolled at schools that have a poor repayment rate Yet their spokesperson refused to mention the schools that would be affected by the announcement

When I became a writer, I started and then I stopped working a story on bullying I felt that readers would not be sympathetic with a male main character who was the butt of abuse, practical jokes and malicious innuendos

Shortly after I heard about President Bush's proposal for Pell Grants for low-income children to attend parochial schools, I finished reading More than a Dream: The Christo Rey Story, a inspirational book about the founding of the first Christo Rey Jesuit high school in Chicago's Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood

In 1980, the Reagan Revolution meant not only a reconsideration of sex education, but also a reconsideration of the theory of evolution Back then, the alternative theory was called creationism or scientific creationism; today it's called intelligent design

During his final State of the Union Address, President Bush announced two proposals for faith-based schools; one, a grants program for low-income students similar to Pell Grants for college students, and the other a national Presidential summit on faith-based education The summit is more important than the grants program

This week, the first of the New Year, the Austin American Statesmen comes an opinion by Ken Lambrecht, president of Texas Planned Parenthood, which cites these statistics: • Texas is No 1 in the nation for repeat teen births • More than 80,000 teenagers in Texas become pregnant every year • In a 2004 poll, ninety percent of Texans agreed that public schools should educate students with age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education These statistics come from the state that brought us George W

On February 12, the true Lincoln's Birthday, I read in USA Today that the Bush Administration proposes to eliminate Federal funding for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), a non-profit program that has distributed 325 million new books to more than 30 million children over the past 42 years RIF has been a popular program on both sides of the political aisle

As 2007 drew to a close, four of the nation's most selective colleges: Harvard, Duke, Swarthmore and Pomona, all announced plans to revamp their financial aid policies by replacing loans with grants Other institutions, most notably Princeton and Columbia, had already implemented similar plans

Since I wrote a novel based around sex education, I've tried to pay attention to other books and movies that do the same I reviewed Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher, which I thoroughly enjoyed

Every profession could use a good TV show to help it flourish in tough times With No Child Left Behind, maybe teachers need one more than ever

I marveled at the size of Trenton Central High School when I toured the facility on a public tour It is 380,000 square feet; to put that in perspective, imagine three anchor stores in a suburban shopping center stacked one atop the other

I have lived in New Jersey practically all of my life The Garden State has been in fiscal crisis practically all of my academic life and my working life