Arnold F. Fege is President and founder of Public Advocacy for Kids (PAK), a national DC-based group devoted to federal and national education and child advocacy policy with a focus on low-income and special needs children and families. He has over 40 years of extensive public education experience as a public school teacher, principal, assistant superintendent, and desegregation director. As a staff person for Senator Robert F. Kennedy, he helped draft provisions of the original ESEA Title I legislation, and since that time, has been involved in helping draft such major national legislation as the education office of civil rights, special education, teacher preparation, parental engagement, bilingual education, rural and tribal provisions, Head Start, school lunch and other national policies focused on equity and the whole child.
He was also Director of Public Engagement and Advocacy for the Public Education Network (PEN), representing on the Hill and agencies 82 community-based local education funds. In addition, he was the Director of the National PTA’s Office of Governmental Relations for over 17 years, and served as a journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, covering urban problems and education, and was a Vietnam War correspondent for two years filing stories for the Associated Press.
Among the awards that Fege has received is the 1969 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Peace Award, the 1970 United Nations Journalism Award for Excellence in Analytical International Newswriting, a 1983 Roosevelt Center Congressional Child Advocacy Award, the 1991 Jefferson Foundation Religious Liberty Honor, the 1998 National PTA President’s Recognition for Outstanding Child Advocacy, and the 2000 Nelson Mandela Award for International Education Leadership and Social Justice. He is the author of numerous articles in newspapers, journals and social media, and most recently co-authored, Our Children Can’t Wait, published by UCLA Center on School Transformation and Teachers College Press.