Education Organizing
Education Organizing

"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
- Frederick Douglass, 1857

Why organize?

We Need:
  • Adequate funding for our schools
  • Adequate school facilities
  • Support programs for children who come to school with disadvantages

The landmark 1998 Abbott V decision directed the state of New Jersey to provide those requirements. But a series of Governors and Legislators has whittled away the intent of the law. Paterson currently faces flat or declining state funding with no local tax base to make up the needed difference. NJ has built only 3 of the 14 new school Paterson needs. And less money available for tutoring, summer programs, health supports and other supplemental programs to help overcome disadvantage.

It’s not OK.

So we have joined 4 other advocacy and organizing groups based in Newark, Jersey City and Paterson to organize around these issues. PEF and SEOC-Paterson are the Paterson team. One Newark Education Coalition, Jersey City Statewide Education Organizing Committee, Abbott Leadership Institute, and the Education Law Center, support the work in Newark and Jersey City. Representing New Jersey’s 3 largest cities and more than 94,000 children, we have formed the New Jersey Education Organizing Collaborative (NJEOC).

We are working on local campaigns within our cities as well as campaigning on our 3 state issues.

How You Can Help

  • Join SEOC-Paterson. Send email to Fernando Martinez, Lead Organizer, f.martinez@seocnj.org, to get information about Paterson meetings and actions.
  • Be an ally. Take action. Click here to write Governor Corzine, our state legislators or the newspaper about your concerns.
  • To get more information on the NJEOC, contact Lauren Wells at Laurenwells@paterson-education.org.

For the history of the Abbott legislation, go to www.edlawcenter.org.




"));