Taxes in Irvington

I dont know if you are all aware of this, but your taxes just went up on or around 7/2/10. This is unreal because have you ever took the time out to see what the people in town hall, school chancellor, firemen, policemen and other areas are making? Maybe you should! Most people are taking our monies and running back to the areas they live in and spending their tax dollars their. Take some time out and see whats going on around you. I will be soon posting some very important things about the payroll in irvington and I would be discussing how we can find out how to attack these issues and concerns. Our school leader is making alot of money and our children are failing. I wonder if the school leader lives in Irvington, I dont know, but I will find out? We are accepting of what we get and we dont challenge the system, well we need to challenge the system and save our homes and families. Is the problem at city hall ( partially)? is the problem at home ( partially)? Is the problem in our community ( partially)? So the blame is on different sides and we need to come together as people and have a voice in our community and its changes. Remember, the town needs your tax money so if we fight for our community to get a re-evaluation on our houses, you will see that we are paying alot of tax money on something we shouldn't be paying on. Our houses value isn't what they said it is and as a community or town, we need to come together in force and fight this problem.

So I ask all to be a part of this blog and let your voice be heard.

Our Council People

It has come a time where we need to use our votes to remove the old and get new with better vision and a team that will work better together with the people. Let me ask you all a question. When was the last time your council person held a meeting to hear your voices and concerns? This is something I think should be done every 3 months. See what council people dont understand is, the importance of communicating effectively and consistently with your area you represent. It is a shame that we have people in Irvington who dont look for change and to many are set in their own way. Politics isnt about friendship, its about business and doing business as need be. The only way we will be able to change anything in this town, we will have to communicate as a masses and vote looking for change and expecting it from our candidates.

I proposed something that I think you all would be interested in hearing. In this day and age, I think it would be the best thing for council people to create a web page or web site where people in their area will be able to contact them with issues and concerns. Having the web site or page would be good because even if you can reach your council person and they cant get directly back to you, they can respond through email. It will also allow others to see more of what other people are thinking about and what others are doing. Your council person could post news, information and other concerns that we need to know. This will enable people to place their concerns directly to the council and they can be address accordingly. This will also create a strong communication throughout irvington because comments can be posted and response can be posted as well, so people can now vote on how a council person really cares about their well being. The council we have now is old and time to move out. My other question to you is, when was the last time your council person notified you of something important in the township you needed to know?

So irvington residents we need to use our votes as a tool. STOP letting them sale you a bunch of bad bananas and vote according to the accomplishments in your area and in the town. Thats why a web site will be perfect. They stand at the polls and ask for your votes and they smile at you and tell you to vote for them, but do you see them any other time. NO!! I know you are all upset about the tax hike we just had and I am sure you all weren't told by your council person through a mass mailer were you? The web site would have mentioned this to you and open up for questions and answers. Our council people in Irvington do just enough to fool you and just enough to make you think they are doing something for you. Well doing something for us isnt laying off cops and firemen. Lay off some of those mean people in the courts and town hall, we dont need alot of the people you have their. I would rather see them go then our protection.

The other thing is the police. There is so many ways to raise money in this small town, like enforcing so many laws and adding some other ordinances and removing alot of the old nonsense ones. Pass an ordinance that will place fine on anyone who wears their pants down and give them community service. Build sub stations for the police in our community, bring back foot patrol in all areas of irvington, bring back the ticket agents who write tickets for street cleaning.Make sure all the police have the proper equipment needed to patrol our streets. Add more cameras to our areas for crime instead of traffic. Come down hard on business owners who violate city codes and regulations for fire and health. Start fining home owners and banks for letting their properties get out of control and out of hand. Pay someone just to go after them and be strong on making sure this is 100% kept up on getting this fine issued. Create more road blocks for checking peoples credentials to and make sure people are driving safely. They can get a schedule up for the town bus so people can know what time the bus comes and go. Try to work something out with the post office to open another location so they can free up the only one post office in irvington that is overly crowded. make sure the police are not over weight and if they are over weight and cant pass a physical, we need to get them in a position to be of a certain weight and look a certain way.

People, we need to really pay attention to all these issues and more. I have so many other concerns as I am sure do you, and I need you all to post your concerns and issues here so I can address them and expose them to the people. We need to hear from each other. I started this blog to work on making a change in the system which is very broken. I will be posting pictures, videos and many other things to come so please join me and send me videos, pictures and your stories so I can post them on the blog. Lets stick together and make an impact in this town. They dont want me to be in charge because they would be very angry in the town hall. I 'm not saying I want to run for any political office but I know how to manage and I know how to hold people accountable and I know how to communicate. I respect our mayor and his work, but I dont know if I can say the same for the council.

These are the faces of our council and I think we all need to demand more and be better selected with our choices and demand that our council people allow us to have a means of communication with them so we can voice and our voices can be heard. Maybe they are all doing wonderful things and we just dont hear it and know about it, but how can we know about it when theres no one telling us anything.

WHY OUR SCHOOLS SYSTEM IS FAILING US

I am sorry I haven't posted in a while but I am definitely keeping up with the things that go on in our community. I have been trying to keep things up and ready but it is difficult when you are doing it by yourself. So I would really like to ask anyone who would like to help me work this blog properly to get in contact with me at 862 452 8741 Sidney. It will be a way for us as a community to get more knowledge into our city and our policies.

It is very important for us to concentrate on the education system we are dealing with at this time and I have some things I would like to say about the educational system and I think we all are on the same page. I am going to post somethings soon about the educational system and what I think we can do to improve the way business as usual is hurting our children. we must get together as adults and address the young people with all the information they need to be ready for the new world. One of the things we can do is get them more into the entrepreneur spirit. Even though alot of us dont know anything about this type of spirit, we can partner up together with the ones who do know and have some type of insight to deliver this message of empowerment to the young people.

Almost 3,000 N.J. students are not allowed to graduate after failing alternate exit exam

TRENTON — Pleasantville High School senior Angela Martinez donned her cap and gown, hugged her family and marched in her graduation ceremony. Like most seniors, she has plans for the future, including college and a career as a nurse.

What Martinez does not have, however, is a diploma.

Though she was allowed to participate in the ceremony, Martinez is one of about 2,900 New Jersey high school seniors who did not graduate last month because they did not pass the state’s alternate high school exit exam, known as the Alternate High School Assessment.

The state Department of Education changed the exam this year and what was once a test nearly everyone passed became a high hurdle to graduation for many. Students in about 65 districts were affected, including Paterson, Jersey City, New Brunswick, East Orange, Newark and Union City, according to the education department.

The changes sent high schools scrambling to help high school seniors find other ways to prove they are worthy of a diploma, and it touched off renewed debate about high-stakes tests.

"It’s so complicated. I passed all of my classes. I want to graduate," said Martinez, 18. "I would like to go on."

The Department of Education retooled the alternate exit exam this year, changing how it is given and how it is scored. The department defends the changes and has allowed students and schools to appeal their cases to the state. This summer those who have yet to pass can do online remedial work and take another crack at the test next month. So far, 1,500 students have signed up to take that route, according to the Department of Education. Should they fail again, they can return to their districts and work on basic skills, get remedial instruction at a community college or attempt to get their high school equivalency diploma.

"We have to tell the world we really do care that kids can read, write and do mathematics when they leave us," Deputy Education Commissioner Willa Spicer said. "Our point is to make sure we have evidence they can do it."Students caught in graduation limbo failed the High School Proficiency Assessment — the state’s typical exit exam — as juniors and then started the alternate exam process. They retook the proficiency assessment throughout their senior year, while also preparing for and taking the Alternate High School Assessment. Unlike the rigidly timed proficiency assessment, which includes a mix of multiple-choice, essay and short-answer questions, the alternate exam asks open-ended questions in math and language arts.

The alternate exam had been criticized for years because students were given an open-ended time frame in which to take it, districts scored the tests themselves and 96 percent of students passed.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education shortened the window in which students take the alternate exam and hired a vendor to score it.

During the first round of tests last winter, thousands of students failed. Scores improved during a second round in the spring, but 2,900 of the 8,000 students who took it still have not passed. Some 100,000 New Jersey high school students graduated this year.

For her part, Martinez, said she was disappointed to learn she did not pass the alternate test. Her brother, Angel Martinez, who is about a year younger, graduated from Pleasantville High last month and his heading to college in South Carolina.

Angela Martinez had hoped to attend Richard Stockton College of New Jersey this fall to study nursing or social work. She has since shelved those plans and hopes to pass the Alternate High School Assessment math exam this summer, attend community college in the fall and eventually transfer.

"I want to start my college career," she said.

The Department of Education has allowed schools to appeal. Students could submit other test scores, such as the SAT or ACT, or portfolios of their work to show they had mastered math and language arts.

The state may allow schools to submit student portfolios next year, but it will not return to the old exam scoring method, said Spicer, the deputy education commissioner.

"I don’t think there’s anybody who thinks it’s OK to do it without any oversight, or let teachers score it themselves," she said.

Some critics have questioned why the state did not phase in the changes and test the new scoring first. Some educators said standardized tests can be particularly challenging for students with limited English.

"The Department rolled out a new high-stakes graduation assessment without conducting a pilot, ran into some unexpected problems ... and yet it was being used for life-altering decisions for young people," said Stan Karp, director of the Secondary Reform Project at the Education Law Center in Newark.

But for others, the issues associated with the alternate test indicate these students are not prepared for college and a career.

"It’s easy to get focused on the process of thousands of kids not passing the exit exam," said Derrell Bradford, executive director of Excellent Education for Everyone, a pro-voucher group. "That focus can distract you from the real problem: That our students are under-equipped, they’ve been passed along," Spicer said schools need to help struggling students before their senior year and that assistance should start if children fail the state-required eighth-grade test.

"That’s when the intervention needs to occur," she said. "Not in the 12th grade."