Bob Braun, New Jersey’s premier investigative reporter, describes a takeover of state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson’s offices.
The dozen or so students from the Newark Student Union attended a school board meeting–which Anderson never attends–testified, then took the elevator to her office, which was unattended, except for a janitor. They proceeded to set up a communications center to Livestream their protests.
The sit-in began Tuesday night. The students stayed all night, demanding Cami Anderson’s resignation.
Who says our students today aren’t smart? Students are more daring and more clever than adults; adults sign petitions, young people take action. That is why it is youth that make revolutions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is awesome! Go kids, go!
LikeLike
The students actiIon was both brave and exemplary. Diane, did you have the same opinion for the Columbia Univerdity takeover in 1968? Perhaps, somehow, the Newark students, learned such exemplary tactics from the takeovers at Columbis, Harvard et al, so man years ago, in device of other most worthy causes.
LikeLike
John a, I was not involved in the student movement of the 1960s. I got married in 1960, had my first child in 1962, my second in 1964. In 1966, my second child developed leukemia and died six months later, in December. I had another baby as soon as I was able. While others were marching, I was grieving and rebuilding my life and my family.
LikeLike
Diane, Thanks for the biographical clarification. Mistakinly, I thought that you were up on 120th Street in 1968.
LikeLike
Now that’s the way it’s done!
LikeLike
Bravo! I hope that their efforts were successful!
LikeLike
I hope they got lots of publicity!
LikeLike
Wonderful!
LikeLike
Diane, having been a part of the 60s I can tell you that this union-sponsored trespassing is not a shade of that era; it’s an insult to it. All the evidence is that Newark students are doing better than ever. That apparently alarms the adult special interests aching to get their patronage positions back. As Robert Curvin titled the last chapter in his brilliant new book, INSIDE NEWARK: DECLINE, REBELLION, AND THE SEARCH FOR TRANSFORMATION, “Pity the Children.”
LikeLike
pbmeyer2014, I don’t know what part of the ’60s you choose to remember, or participated. Or where you were. Acts of civil disobedience were a key part of 1960s protest movements. Do you not remember lunch counter ‘Sit-ins’. The work of MLK? How about countless actions against the war in Viet Nam? How about actions against the draft? You have no understanding of the 1960s protest movements. The acts of those Newark students is, actually, in the spirit of those times. You seem to believe that the Newark Public Schools is doing just fine under Cami Anderson. That the unions are at the root of the problem and the sit in students are tools of the Union. Say no more. Your education and political position are clear.
LikeLike
Peter, can you imagine being a parent or a student in a district that has been controlled by the state for 20 years? where the citizens have no voice? where the Governor and his handmaiden decide what is needed without consulting the people it affects? where the superintendent has not attended a board meeting in a year? Talk about disrespect! The students are engaging in direct action, and they are acting in the spirit of democracy. If the unions agree, that’s fine. Unions are the backbone of the middle class, which is shrinking. The New York Times today had a story about people who had been earning low wages but were lucky enough to get a union job and a real salary. That’s called moving from just above the poverty line to getting a place in the middle class (from a job paying $10 an hour to a job paying $50,000 a year). That’s what unions do. Provide decent wages and benefits for working people. I think that’s a good thing.
LikeLike
Pbmeyer, The Newark high school students object to Anderson’s closing schools/trying to rescind InternationL Baccalaureate program at Science Park High School and more. It is Newark Students Union participating not AFT-sponsored. Last year 70+ clergy members signed letter against Anderson’s One Newark plan. At least one clergy member was at BoEd Wednesday.
LikeLike
pbmeyer,
Newark students are doing better than ever? That must be a joke!
LikeLike
“Diane, having been a part of the 60s”
What part, where, how?
LikeLike
Anyone alive in the 60s was “a part of the 60s.
LikeLike
I would suggest that perhaps Newark students know what things are like just a wee bit better than you do.
LikeLike
Pbmeyer, R Curvin’s book was published before the One Newark fiasco w/ 600 families trying to register kids at enrollment center w/ 1 NPS staffer assigning schools. They cavalierly told parents to come back next day, next week. Even though the parents had to take off from work &/or bring a child/ren by bus to center. By July ’14 pub date, Anderson had blown off NJ state joint committee on educ for several months–did Curvin address that?
To the extent that Newark children are doing better than ever, it could be the result of Marion Bolden’s extensive work on staff development when she was math supervisor/asst supt/superintendent.
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure Newark students are way smarter than people who rule the state by money and power, and those tagalongs who taunt those who live in struggle of life. Hope you are not the only one to make soup grapes for being outsmarted by kids who are much younger than people in your generation. Pity the reformers, a hawkish governor, and superintendant.
LikeLike
>soup grape=sour grape
I think making ‘sour soup’ from “Grapes of Wrath” will be a good idea for NJ Ed deformers and their tagalongs to cure their demented thinking. Nah.
LikeLike
the sit-in movement started at a Woolworth’s Five and Dime lunch counter in Greensboro NC by 4 NC A&T students who may have all been freshmen. In Birmingham you had the children’s march. And I strongly disagree with the previous comment, since I too was part of the 60s, and was involved in direct actions in high school and in college.
LikeLike
I love it! All the sturm and drang, but nobody has bothered to take on the uncomfortable facts of Newark’s corrupt past (towit, Curvin’s book) and make a case for it’s having emerged from that past; nor deal with the amazing progress for kids since Cami Anderson arrived; towit:
http://assets.njspotlight.com/assets/14/1201/1837:
Early childhood enrollment is up significantly. Student enrollment has increased by 1,00[0] students; we went from 70% of families who are eligible to enroll in free universal PK to 90%. This year we became the second school district in the nation to receive a Head Start grant ($7 million award).
· Our lowest performing K-8s are on the move. Although the state assessments have gotten harder, leaving the state “flat”/slightly down three years in a row, our 8 Renew Schools (most of which hadn’t seen growth in over a decade) saw significant gains in reading and math – and we just launched 8 new Renew Schools.
· Graduation rates are increasing while we are keeping more students. Our overall graduation rate has increased by 10%, the percentage of students passing graduation test has increased by 11%, and 500 fewer students have dropped out.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2015/~/media/Multimedia/Interactives/2015/ecci/2014%20ECCI_web_FINAL.pdf:
Here’s an excerpt:
The largest positive change occurred in Newark, NJ, and reflects a major upgrade in several aspects of their choice system, the most notable of which is a new “One Newark Enrolls” process for enrollment: Students/parents rank up to eight schools and are matched to one through a computer algorithm that minimizes the overall disparity for all applicants between their preferences and their assignments. The new enrollment system includes charter schools in the common application.
LikeLike
Readers may be interested in:
–Jersey Jazzman 11-8-14 “Newark’s Superintendent Faces…” blog, which cites NJ State BoEd member Arcelio Aponte asking Anderson about scores (high school up, 3-8 down).
–Bob Braun’s Ledger 12-3-14 “Newark’s Anderson reform strategy” cites recent scores of Renew schools.
pbm, the NJ Spotlight link is for a memo Cami Anderson wrote/sent asking sympathizers to submit puff pieces for her. That was before Christie advisor Mike DuHaime hired Brittany Chord Parmley’s husband from California and CA was able to hire another board office spokesperson (who, conveniently, had worked for StudentsFirst).
LikeLike
When they’ve closed neighborhood school or converted K-8 to charter w/ only primary grades, listing up to eight other schools doesn’t necessarily make “Cami’s choice” an improvement.
LikeLike
Excellent Work students! We’re behind you!
Dr. Ravitch, keep us posted.
LikeLike
Love great work by NJ students!
They got her on the wings, and ripped them off.
They should keep occupying Cami’s office until she says, “I surrender.”
LikeLike
Yes. Cami should Surrender! Stop improving kids’ educational opportunities! That’s what Newark wants: a return to bad schools and corrupt, special interest control of them. So glad to see the 60s (and the 70s and 80s) still alive in Newark!
LikeLike
All you describe here is already happening in NJ–thanks to troubled a governor under federal criminal investigation and a hawkish super-intendant who are creating and/or restoring institutional academic apartheid in the Garden State.
Indeed some people in that governor-tagged Ed board camp are indeed applauding Apartheid just like a clueless J columnist(she’s Christian, really?) in my country who put her foot in her mouth by suggesting that her country needs racial segregation policy for foreign residents because people cannot live along each other because of difference in race and ethnicity (in her country J-land).
The result? Protest letters from ambassador of South Africa and NPO representatives. And lots of angry voices.
Speaking of cultural ignorance. Well done.
LikeLike