Camden, New Jersey, is one of the state’s impoverished small cities that is under state control. It may be the poorest district in the state. It is rhe lowest performing. The Chris Christie administration appointed a 32-year-old inexperienced young man (Teach for America alum) with some time working in the New York Department of Education and Newark as Camden’s superintendent, and naturally, his goal is to turn public school students over to charter operators. Save Our Schools NJ sent the following letter to the state commissioner of education:
“FOR IMMEDIATE USE
April 21, 2014
Save Our Schools NJ requests that Commissioner Hespe stop additional legally-questionable activities by the Camden School District
Save Our Schools NJ Contacts
Susan Cauldwell susancauldwell@saveourschoolsnj.org 908-507-1020
Julia Sass Rubin jlsrubin@verizon.net 609-683-0046
Today, Save Our Schools NJ, a non-partisan, grassroots organization with more than 15,000 members across New Jersey, sent a second letter to the state’s Acting Education Commissioner David Hespe, alerting him to actions by the State Operated Camden School District that raise serious legal concerns.
Highlighting the fact that the Camden School District had mailed home to district families a recruitment flyer for the Mastery charter school network, Save Our Schools NJ requested that the Acting Commissioner “investigate the extent to which Camden’s public school resources were used in mailing” the recruitment flyers to parents as this “would constitute inappropriate use of school funds to promote — and give preferential treatment to — a specific private organization.”
Save Our Schools NJ further informed the Acting Commissioner that Mastery recruiters had been going to the homes of Camden public school students, to encourage them to enroll in the school. Save Our Schools NJ asked the Acting Commissioner to “investigate how Mastery, a private entity, obtained the addresses of Camden students for purposes of conducting unannounced visits to students’ homes” and to “examine whether Camden provided Mastery with students’ home addresses — or any other individual student information — without the consent of parents and guardians.”
Referencing the legislative record of the Urban Hope Act, Save Our Schools NJ also raised once more the concern identified in a prior letter that Camden was violating the Act’s ban on temporary facilities for Renaissance charter schools:
“In passing the Urban Hope Act, the legislature was very clear that Renaissance Schools cannot operate as temporary schools in temporary facilities, but rather must be in a “newly-constructed” school. The legislative statement to the Urban Hope bill, issued by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee on January 5, 2012, states on page 3 that “[t]he committee amended the bill to: … clarify that renaissance school projects are newly-constructed schools…Yet, Camden is planning to locate both Mastery and Uncommon Schools Renaissance schools in existing public school buildings, for the 2014-15 academic year.”
Save Our Schools NJ requested that the Commissioner “immediately investigate whether Camden has authorized Mastery and Uncommon to operate schools under the Urban Hope Act in 2014-15 on a temporary basis in existing Camden school facilities and, if so, take prompt action to direct Camden to terminate this arrangement.”
April 21, 2014
Commissioner David C. Hespe
New Jersey Department of Education
100 River View Plaza
P.O. Box 500
Trenton, NJ 08625
Dear Commissioner Hespe,
As a follow-up to our April 14, 2014 letter, we wish to bring to your attention additional actions by the State Operated Camden School District (Camden) that raise serious concerns about Camden’s compliance with the Urban Hope Act and regulations, and with other laws.
1) Temporary facilities are not allowed under the Urban Hope Act
We remain very concerned that, although their application to build such schools has yet to be approved by your office, Camden is moving forward to facilitate the enrollment of Camden public school students in September, 2014 in “temporary” schools, to be operated by the Mastery and Uncommon organizations and located in existing Camden public schools, ostensibly as Renaissance Schools under the Urban Hope Act.
In passing the Urban Hope Act, the legislature was very clear that Renaissance Schools cannot operate as temporary schools in temporary facilities, but rather must be in a “newly-constructed” school. The legislative statement to the Urban Hope bill, issued by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee on January 5, 2012, states on page 3 that “[t]he committee amended the bill to: … clarify that renaissance school projects are newly-constructed schools.”
Yet, Camden is planning to locate both Mastery and Uncommon Schools Renaissance schools in existing public school buildings, for the 2014-15 academic year.
The attached letter, which was mailed by Camden to public school parents, states:
“Mastery School of Camden will open this fall in two temporary locations for approximately 600 kindergarten through 5th grade students:
-At PynePoynt Family School, Mastery Academy will serve up to 380 new K-5 Students.
-At the old Washington School, Mastery Academy will serve approximately 220 K-2 students.”
These types of schools — to be operated by a charter management organization and located temporarily in existing public school facilities — are clearly not authorized under the Urban Hope Act. Accordingly, we request that you immediately investigate whether Camden has authorized Mastery and Uncommon to operate schools under the Urban Hope Act in 2014-15 on a temporary basis in existing Camden school facilities and, if so, take prompt action to direct Camden to terminate this arrangement.
2) Public school districts should not advocate for specific private entities
The letter quoted above, which Camden sent to public school parents, included the attached solicitation flyers for the Mastery charter school chain.
The use of Camden personnel and resources to encourage public school students to attend the privately managed Mastery school would constitute inappropriate use of school funds to promote — and give preferential treatment to — a specific private organization.
We request that you investigate the extent to which Camden’s public school resources were used in mailing Mastery recruitment flyers to parents.
The investigation also should ascertain why it appears that Mastery was the only charter organization in Camden to be given direct assistance by the Camden School District for 2014-15 enrollment recruitment activities.
3) Camden cannot share confidential student data with individual private entities
Camden parents who live in the area from which Mastery plans to draw for its unapproved Renaissance school also indicated that Mastery representatives came to their homes to encourage them to enroll their children in the Renaissance school.
This raises serious concerns about whether Camden disclosed individual student records and information to a third party entity without the consent of the students and their parents and guardians.
We request that your Office launch an immediate investigation into how Mastery, a private entity, obtained the addresses of Camden students for purposes of conducting unannounced visits to students’ homes. This investigation should examine whether Camden provided Mastery with students’ home addresses — or any other individual student information — without the consent of parents and guardians.
We would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss this further.
Sincerely,
Susan Cauldwell, volunteer organizer, Save Our Schools NJ
Executive Director, Save Our Schools NJ Community Organizing
susancauldwell@saveourschoolsnj.org
Julia Sass Rubin, volunteer organizer, Save Our Schools NJ
Chair, Board of Directors, Save Our Schools NJ Community Organizing
jlsrubin@verizon.net
cc: Paymon Rouhanifard, Superintendent, Camden City Public Schools
David Sciarra, Executive Director, Education Law Center
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The fact that the Christie Administration’s Camden Superintendent sent letters home to public school parents to recruit for two charter school networks highlights how blatantly the Christie Administration is trying to destroy public education in New Jersey’s cities.
Today’s revelations regarding Camden further support that this is their agenda.
Here’s the latest:
As our letters highlighted, Renaissance charter schools must – by law – build new facilities.
OPRA’d applications for the Mastery and Uncommon Schools charter networks, which the Camden Superintendent actively recruited to apply for the Renaissance charter program, reveal that they asked the Christie Administrations for a waiver to the Renaissance charter law, so that they could use existing public school facilities vs. building new ones.
New Jersey taxpayers provide Renaissance charter schools with substantial additional per-pupil funding vs regular charter schools, to cover the cost of the new construction.
The two charter networks want to receive the extra funding and other perks of the Renaissance charter program but to ignore the requirement to build new facilities.
The takeover of existing public school facilities by the charters was clearly the intention of the Camden district all along. The Camden Superintendent, who was appointed by and reports to the Christie Administration, recruited the two charter networks, even as he publicly lamented having to lay off teachers and staff because the District was facing a budget shortfall as a result of the diversion of tax dollars to too many new charter schools.
As our letters point out, the Camden district also violated the Renaissance charter law previously in requesting an extension in the application deadline for these two charter networks. That is not allowed under the Renaissance legislation.
Furthermore, Mastery charter illegally came onto school grounds to approach elementary school children to attend its charter.
And, the Camden District may have illegally shared student addresses with the Mastery charter network, enabling the charter to go door to door in Camden to recruit students.”
Source: https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurSchoolsNJ/posts/751771731522656?stream_ref=10
The good news is that this is all coming out and that the people of Camden are standing up in support of their public schools.
Here are photos from some of this morning’s rallies: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.751733241526505.1073741903.174128812620287&type=1&stream_ref=10
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Will Governor Christie call on them for using kids as “drug mules”?
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The author is being kind to say “inexperience young man” when referring to Camden’s “superintendent”. His “credentials” are shockingly lacking. This “leader” has a B.A (not in education), no advanced degree, a year doing a stint with one “impressive” title and another year doing a stint with “another impressive title, two years in TFA among his credits. Sounds like the TFA network got him linked into jobs with “specific” titles so he could wind up as superintendent of Camden. Surely, Christie was in the know on this one. Ughhh….
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disgusting
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Thank you for covering this. Governor Christie and his pals are taking clear advantage of communities that need to build upon their inner strength to survive. Camden is awakening to a new dawn that is approaching as they are coming together to fight this common enemy of the people. Teachers and community members have started to hold weekly rallies and are attending board meetings to voice their opinion. Unfortunately, the messages to the board seems to be falling on deaf ears, that this is NOT what Camden wants as yet another urban area in New Jersey is undergoing a steam roller attempt to privatize at the cost of the communities and the children. http://lovelightba.wordpress.com/
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Thanks Ms. Ravitch for blogging about Camden Public School System. We appreciate everyone’s support by informing the nation about how they are treating our students and teachers. Keep blogging until they hear us and we’ll continue to rally!!!
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And in Newark, teachers received a solicitation through their school email to go work for Little Eva Moskowitz and her Success Academy half million dollar fiefdom:
http://teacherbiz.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/newark-teachers-want-to-work-for-eva-moskowitz/
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The Success Academy charter network is trying to influence the Newark Mayor’s race as well.
From Politicker NJ:
“the largest contribution to the pro-Jeffries Newark First group came from another group, Education Reform Now, who donated $850,000.”
“Members of the group, including board members who have experience working at high-powered Wall Street hedge funds, are active in the Success Academies network of charter schools.
The question of the role of charter schools has become a critical part of the debate regarding the future of Newark’s schools.
The One Newark school reorganization plan, announced by Newark School Superintendent Cami Anderson in December, includes the expansion of charter schools, which already serve approximately 20 percent of the city’s students, as well as the closure or consolidation of certain public schools.”
Source: http://www.politickernj.com/72708/newark-mayors-race-jeffries-independent-expenditure-group-shows-donations-13-million-wall-stre
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It’s probably too much to point out that Save-Our-Schools original letter is incorrect in its statements about the Urban Hope Act. If you look at the law:
Click to access chap31.pdf
you don’t find the claims about temporary facilities that are made.
Personally, I don’t like the generally false claims by Save Our Schools any more than I like the generally false claims by the Christie administration. For us to make progress, the rhetoric has to be dialed back and the focus has to be on the students.
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