Gene I. Maeroff, a former education correspondent for The New York Times, a prolific author on education policy issues, and a former school board president in Edison, N.J., died July 25. He was 75.
He also worked at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in Princeton, N.J. He later became the founding director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Bel Kaufman, the author of Up the Down Staircase and a longtime teacher in the New York City school system, died July 25 at age 103.
The 1965 best-selling novel, about an idealistic English teacher who comes up against the comic and depressing realities of an urban school system, earned Ms. Kaufman rave reviews and became part of the K-12 literary canon.