Stan Karp, an experienced teacher who retired and now works for the Education Law Center, here describes the state’s decision to give “fiscal control” to Newark, but not control over instruction, personnel, operations, or governance. What this means is unclear. The board cannot hire or fire the superintendent. What power was transferred? No one knows.

He writes:

Small Step Toward Local Control in Newark

Newark parents and community advocates seeking to end the State’s 18-year takeover of the district’s public schools won a small, but significant victory, this week. At a June 4 court hearing on a legal challenge to the State’s continued control, the Assistant Attorney General representing the State announced that Education Commissioner Chris Cerf would open discussions about restoring district control over fiscal management.

The move is a partial step under the State’s complicated takeover law, which provides for restoring local control in any of five areas monitored by the State’s QSAC (Quality Single Accountability Continuum) review process: governance, fiscal management, operations, personnel, and curriculum & instruction. (Local control of “operations” was nominally returned in 2007.) In 2011, a State review gave the district passing scores in three of the four remaining areas, but Cerf declined to restore local authority in any area, citing the district’s low test scores.

Newark community groups and the locally-elected advisory Board challenged that decision in court, with Education Law Center representing the Coalition for Effective Newark Public Schools and attorney Gregory Stewart representing the Advisory Board.

The Commissioner responded by ordering another “interim” review that produced lower district scores and asking the Court to dismiss the challenge on the basis of the new lower scores. The Court refused. The State then pointed to fluctuations in district scores in multiple reviews to argue that the “sustained progress” required for restoring local control in any area was missing.

However, the district’s scores in fiscal management were consistently high across several reviews. This undercut the State’s case and apparently led to the State’s decision to consider restoring partial control over fiscal matters while retaining control over governance, personnel and curriculum and instruction. Such a step, while a modest victory for Newark advocates and community activists who have long been pressing for an end to the takeover, would have limited impact and falls well short of restoring local control of school policy to an elected Board in the state’s largest district.

Advocates await the court’s ruling as to whether Newark will regain local control over governance – including the ability to hire and fire the superintendent. In the meantime, struggles between the local Advisory Board and State district superintendent continue.

For example, in recent months the local Advisory Board rejected the budget submitted by State-appointed Supt. Cami Anderson. It also unanimously passed a resolution of “no-confidence” in Anderson’s administration. Similarly, the Board, the city council and the county board of freeholders all endorsed a sweeping call for a moratorium on school closings and “reform initiatives” in the district. As long as the State retains control over governance, State-Supt. Anderson can override these decisions despite strong local opposition. (Significantly, while the State cited low test scores as a prime reason for not restoring district control, it gave Supt. Anderson a merit pay bonus for improving student achievement during the 2011-2012 school year—the same year the district’s monitoring scores dropped sharply)

Beyond the long and complicated history of NJ’s takeover law, the struggle for control of the state’s largest district has become part of the larger landscape of polarized education politics. Originally, the takeover law was supposed to create the capacity for effective local governance of schools where the state had determined it was lacking. On that score it has failed for over two decades. But today education policy in the three—soon to be four—state takeover districts (Jersey City, Paterson, Newark & Camden) is driven by political commitments to a market reform agenda of budget cutting, charter expansion, closing neighborhood public schools and retreats from equity. At this point, ending the takeovers is part of a larger effort to change the current direction of education reform policies in NJ and the nation.

See also: The Trouble with Takeovers

Governance and Urban School Improvement