Speaking of remedies to school failure besides more funding, The Record reports that Paterson Public Schools was about to get a DOE grant to turn around three of their worst schools but the teachers’ union, Paterson Education Association, refused to sign on.

The district has been readying the paperwork for a Special Improvement Grant from the State that would award several million dollars to “radically restructure” Schools 4, 6, and 10. The grant proposal would “extend the instruction time and remove up to 50 percent of the teachers at each of the woefully underperforming schools.” PEA President Peter Tirri said, however, that the changes would violate the current teacher contract. The proposal was further muddled by the company hired (for $34K) to write the grant, Millenium Strategies LLC, which is linked to the Democratic Party and sympathetic to the union.