The second part in a two-part series on the difference real people are making everyday. By State Senator Jeff Van Drew.

The first part in a two-part column series on the difference real people are making everyday. By State Senator Jeff Van Drew

By Assemblyman Nelson Albano
 
Anyone who meets Samantha Ravelli would not be able to tell right off the bat that she’s not your typical 6th grader. And it’s not that she does anything out of the ordinary for a child her age – she’s active in school and makes the honor roll. What makes Samantha different is that she’s on the verge of changing the way an entire state teaches kids like her.
 
Samantha has dyslexia, a neurological disorder in which the brain has difficulty decoding words and sounds. Researchers estimate that roughly 20 percent of the population suffers from some form of dyslexia that makes it difficult to read. But for those with severe dyslexia, like Samantha, words that most people take for granted as easy – words as simple as “cat” or “dog” – appear to a dyslexic as if they are written in a foreign language.
 

By Jeff Van Drew, Senator, First Legislative District
Daily Journal - Vineland, N.J.
Jun 24, 2009
      The letters and e-mails keep coming. Hundreds of First District constituents telling me and my Assembly colleagues, Nelson Albano and Matt Milam, that they can not afford increasing taxes, fees, tolls, and regulatory charges that continue to add to their financial burden – especially given the economic tailspin our state and our country is experiencing.
      We are opposed to the budget as it is presently constructed. We’ve been fighting a long battle to have the state government run in a more fiscally responsible way.  We support restrictions on additional spending in order to lessen our state’s reliance on taxes, particularly as a means of combating the seemingly constant increases in so many tax rates throughout the state. We are also opposed to one-time budget gimmicks that hurt taxpayers in the long-run.