Jersey Jazzman says Governor Christie has complete control of education in four urban districts in his state, and his appointees have haughtily introduced changes without community consultation or consent, sowing chaos and dissension, and protests by students and parents.

In Newark, as much as half of the students are boycotting Cami Anderson’s “One Newark” reorganization.

In Camden, the district is run by a man who has no experience running a district or even a school.

He concludes:

“State control didn’t start with Chris Christie, and there were plenty of administrative problems in New Jersey urban districts long before he came to power. But there’s little doubt things have degenerated under his failed leadership of our city school districts.

“Transportation, staffing, employee morale — these are among the primary concerns of a school district leader. You simply can’t run a school system unless you address these basic issues, and you can’t expect lightly qualified and lightly experienced superintendents — like Anderson and Rouhanifard — to know how to address the complexities of providing these needs when they both seem hellbent on deconstructing their districts in favor of a “portfolio” model of charter school expansion.

“Jersey City’s Lyles and Paterson’s Donnie Evans are another matter. I would never say either was inexperienced: Evans has a very solid resume, and as I’ve said before, Lyles, even though she is a Broadie and served in Joel Klein’s NYCDOE, has been a career educator and knows first-hand how schools are run. That said: if experience is almost always a prerequisite for success, it is never a guarantee. It’s certain that all of these jobs come with the proviso that the superintendent must adhere to the Christie school program: slashed budgets, merit pay, gutting tenure, test-based evaluations, and charter school proliferation.

“Even if these superintendents are capable and working in good faith, they are constrained by Christie’s ideologies. There is ultimately only one man responsible for the failures of governance in New Jersey’s state-run school districts: Chris Christie. Whatever problems may arise from returning Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, and Camden to local control, they couldn’t possibly be worse than continuing to suffer under Christie’s incompetence.”

– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/09/under-govchristie-state-control-of.html#sthash.1fexVWKh.dpuf