Citizens of Néw Jersey believe that the elected board of Newark should select their own superintendent. Newark has not been allowed to direct its own schools for 20 years. The state has failed, it is time to return to democracy in Newark.
Newark Residents Should Select Their Next Superintendent
We believe that the people of Newark should be able to democratically govern their public schools.
Fortunately, Mark Biedron, President of NJ’s State Board of Education, seems to agree. Mr. Biedron recently told the Star Ledger that “the people of Newark having local control over the school district…is a good thing.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Biedron will have an opportunity to act on this belief when the State Board votes on whether Chris Cerf should become Newark’s next Superintendent.
If the State Board approves Mr. Cerf, it will be continuing a 20 year history of disenfranchisement for Newark’s nearly 300,000 residents, who have had no say in this decision.
If the Board rejects Mr. Cerf and instead approves a candidate selected by Newark’s popularly-elected Board of Education, it will be putting Mr. Biedron’s admirable philosophy into practice.
There is plenty of precedent for allowing Newark to select its own superintendent.
Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson are all state-controlled school districts. Yet Jersey City’s popularly-elected Board of Education selected its Superintendent, Marcia Lyles. Paterson’s Superintendent, Dr. Donnie Evans, was selected by a committee that included members of Paterson’s popularly-elected Board of Education, along with other community leaders. In contrast, Newark’s popularly-elected Board of Education has had no voice in selecting Mr. Cerf, who was nominated for this position by Governor Christie.
Approving Mr. Cerf is also difficult to justify because Mr. Cerf lacks the qualifications necessary to run New Jersey’s largest school district. Unlike Jersey City’s and Paterson’s leaders, Mr. Cerf has no prior experience as a superintendent.
Nor is there a record of success in related public-education positions on which to base Mr. Cerf’s nomination. In fact, Mr. Cerf’s tenure as New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education was marked by numerous poor decisions regarding Newark, including:
Appointing and continuing to support Newark’s prior Superintendent, Cami Anderson, whose policies and behaviors generated broad-based rejection and rebellion from Newark residents;
Improperly giving in to a demand from Ms. Anderson “to allow her to retain full control over 28 low-performing schools, which resulted in New Jersey failing to comply with federal requirements; and
Forcibly maintaining State control of Newark’s schools by dramatically lowering the district’s scores on the State’s monitoring system (QSAC) from the scores that Mr. Cerf had given the district less than a year earlier.
The people of Newark deserve the right to select their next Superintendent. They also deserve an experienced public education leader with a proven record of success. Mr. Cerf’s candidacy fails on all these counts.
We encourage Mr. Biedron and the other State Board of Education members to vote no on Mr. Cerf’s nomination and to allow Newark’s popularly-elected Board of Education to nominate the district’s next Superintendent.
Newark’s residents have been deprived of their right to democratically control their public schools for 20 years. It is long past time to correct this wrong!
Rosie Grant, Piscataway, NJ
Parent and nonprofit leader
Michelle Fine, Montclair, NJ
Parent and professor
Judy DeHaven, Red Bank, NJ
Parent and writer
Valerie Trujillo, Jersey City, NJ
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Jacklyn Brown, Manalapan, NJ
Parent and educator
Julia Sass Rubin, Princeton, NJ
Parent and professor
Linda Reid, Paterson, NJ
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Melissa Katz, South Brunswick, NJ
Future educator
Bobbie Theivakumaran, Metuchen, NJ
Parent and investment banker
Lisa Winter, Basking Ridge, NJ
Parent, technology manager and former Board of Education member
Marcella Simadiris, Montclair, NJ
Parent and educator
Michelle McFadden-DiNicola, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and public education advocate
Bill Michaelson, Lawrence Township, NJ
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Marie Hughes Corfield, Flemington, NJ
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Rita McClellan, Cherry Hill, NJ
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Sarah Blaine, Montclair, NJ
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Susan Cauldwell, Spring Lake, NJ
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Heidi Maria Brown, Pitman, NJ
Parent and educator
Julie Borst, Allendale, NJ
Parent and special education advocate
Susan Berkey, Howell, NJ
Parent and educator
Darcie Cimarusti, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and Board of Education member
Amnet Ramos, North Plainfield, NJ
Parent and educator
Elana Halberstadt, Montclair, NJ
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Ani McHugh, Delran, NJ
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Jill DeMaio, Monroe, NJ
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Lauren Freedman, Maplewood, NJ
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Lisa Rodgers, South Brunswick, NJ
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Laurie Orosz, Montclair, NJ
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Michael Kaminski, Mount Laurel, NJ
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Ronen Kauffman, Union City, NJ
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Frankie Adao, Newark, NJ
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Kathleen Nolan, Princeton, NJ
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Sue Altman, Camden, NJ
Educator
Jennifer Cohan, Princeton, NJ
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Daniel Anderson, Bloomfield, NJ
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Debbie Baer, Robbinsville, NJ
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Dan Masi, Roxbury Township, NJ
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Susan Schutt, Ridgewood, NJ
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Karin Szotak, Madison NJ
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Tiombe Gibson, Deptford, NJ
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Lisa Marcus Levine, Princeton, NJ
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Kristen Carr Jandoli, Haddon, NJ
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Jean Schutt McTavish, Ridgewood, NJ
Parent and high school principal
Virginia Manzari, West Windsor, NJ.
Parent and businesswoman
Stephanie LeGrand, Haddonfield, NJ
Parent and public education advocate
Melanie McDermott, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and sustainability researcher
Nora Hyland, Asbury Park, NJ
Parent and professor
Beth O’Donnell-Fischer, Verona, NJ
Parent
Susie Welkovits, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and Borough Council President
Gregory M. Stankiewicz, Princeton, NJ
Parent and nonprofit leader
Margot Embree Fisher, Teaneck, NJ
Parent and former Board of Education member
Stephanie Petriello, Dumont, NJ
Parent, educator and business owner
Laura Begg, Bernards Township, NJ
Parent and public education advocate
Gary C. Frazier, Camden, NJ
Parent and community activist
Debbie Reyes, Florence Township, NJ
Parent
Christine McGoey, Montclair, NJ
Parent
Regan Kaiden, Collingswood, NJ
Parent and educator
Moneke Singleton-Ragsdale, Camden, NJ
Parent and administrator
Toby Sanders, Trenton, NJ
Parent, pastor and educator
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You can sign on in support at:
http://action.saveourschoolsnj.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17086
There are an awful lot of women on that list. Is that a problem?
Nonsense. When I retired after 28 years of teaching, I spent a year on the local school board. What I found was the “butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker” and the lawyer of course, knew more than I did about education. What qualifications do people with no expertise have that allows them to make decisions about educational matters.
We live in a world where teachers are required to know material that is designed for the specially initiated few. Yet, they have the audacity to vote on subject matter that is completely out of their bailiwick. Why not promote a new system that has teachers vote on who gets to make decisions about educational concerns. The level of dissension that exists between board members, the use of their positions as a stepping stone to further their personal ambition, the nepotism and favoritism for their siblings, and on and on. These ensembles are ripe with instances of corruption and meddling in teacher’s lives. They are feared by teachers, parents and even administrators. It only adds yet another layer of superfluous activity to an already unwieldy bureaucracy.
Ian Kay
It is indicative of the inroads the reformistas have built that this argument need even be made! The people of Newark pay for the schools through their tax dollars, they live in the city, and their children – and their neighbors’ children – attend the schools. Who else ought to determine what happens in the schools? No one else. Want to know what Brother Jitu’s colonialism looks like? Look to Newark.
Diane, your “20 years of disenfranchisement” makes it sound like Newark’s school district was taken over by a foreign power instead of by a liberating army sent in to save the children, which is what it was. All one has to do is read the history, especially Robert Curvin’s “Inside Newark: Decline, Rebellion, and the Search for Transformation,” to understand how necessary the state takeover was. As Curvin writes, “Schools are the lens through which one can understand how a city’s leadership carries out its special obligation to children, and to its future.” The last chapter of his book is titled “Pity the Children” and in it we have a devastating view of what political corruption can do to a school system: New Jersey’s largest and one of its most troubled. Of course, it would be nice if the state — which has not been perfect — could turn control back to Newark, but the city’s leaders have to earn that right back by proving themselves capable of taking care of those children. And based on the treatment given Cami Anderson, I would say they have a long ways to go. –peter meyer
“…but the city’s leaders have to earn that right back by proving themselves capable of taking care of those children.”
This is what is meant by colonialism.
Yes, but this was all done within the democratic system that Diane says should run the schools. This was before charters and vouchers and hedge-funders. It was the very system that Diane wants to take us back to. So, if it’s colonialism, it was an inside job. But read Curvin’s book and get back to me about how nice the schools were in the pre-colonial days.
>your “20 years of disenfranchisement” makes it sound like Newark’s school district was taken over by a foreign power instead of by a liberating army sent in to save the children, which is what it was.
Too bad. That’s what previous governors and mayors did as their choice to control schools through excessive deregulation scheme for years. These leaders empowered private organizations and corporate hedge-fund managers to intervene in the stake of public education–as if they were behaving like big foreign banks who barged into local market with disregard of local financial law.
Speaking of state control, both Christie and Anderson screwed themselves so bad in their desperate attempt to ‘earn that right back’ due to their inability to fix corruption in the system.
Ken, speaking of Newark corruption, whatever happened to Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift? There is a new type of corruption, not penny ante, but big-time, out of town consultants who stuff millions in their pockets.
Peter Meyer,
Thank you for signing your name.
That way, readers can be informed that you are a very active member of the privatization movement, an editor at the Hoover Institution’s Education Next, a fellow at the Fordham Institute, and other conservative think tanks.
Thus, it is not surprising that you support the 20-year-old state takeover of Newark’s schools. By now, it is a well-established fact that corporate reformers disdain democracy, especially in majority Black districts.
At our Network for Public Education conference in Chicago last April, Brother Jitu Brown of Journey for Justice describes the “reform” movement” as neocolonialism. Reformers don’t seem to believe that Black people are capable of self-governance.
I hope you will watch his speech.
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/05/04/opening-keynotes-by-brother-jitu-brown-and-newark-student-leader-tanaisa-brown/
Thanks for the shout-out, Dianne. I’ve actually given the neo-colonialism speech myself*, while working very hard with my African-American friends, in the town where I served on the school board, to get a charter school where black kids could get a decent education. See my guest Ed Week column for a friend here: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/charting_my_own_course/2015/02/part_two_of_my_black.html. It might be a bit hard to paint me with the same superficial brushes you employ to go after your other enemies, but I hope people read my stuff and learn something: http://educationnext.org/author/pmeyer/. And, as a journalist, I’m always happy to be corrected when I get the facts wrong. Thank you. peter.
*When I gave my speech, the neo-colonialists was the teachers union, which ruled our tiny district with an iron fist.
Peter,
Your ideology of privatization does get in the way of the stories you tell, like the time you described the Brighter Choice charter schools in Albany as “the Holy Grail” of charter schools (http://educationnext.org/brighter-choices-in-albany/), not to mention your admiring portrayal of the Bloomberg administration that closed hundreds of schools and replaced them with new ones, then closed the new ones that failed unless they pushed out the students with low scores. Since I haven’t read your complete works, I won’t have time to correct all your factual errors, but suffice it to say that several of the Brighter Choice charter schools have failed, and no one in NYC believes that 12 years of the Bloomberg test-and-punish regime transformed the city’s school system. Not even your fellow reformers point to NYC as a “turnaround” district despite 12 years of total mayoral control.
Diane, I should give you the last word since this is your blog, but it certainly wasn’t ideology that prompted me to call Brighter Choice the gold standard. The schools were doing a damn good job when I reported that story and they were being talked about as model. Hey, maybe we can talk about them as a model for reform failure! But I’d sure love to know what happened. (By the way, just as ideology doesn’t make a school successful, IMHO, it doesn’t make it fail. More to the point, as our friend Don Hirsch would say, it’s “bad ideas, not bad people” that are the problem.) As to the Bloomberg/Klein story, I do think I got most of the facts right on that one and gave you and Sol Stern quite a bit of dissenting space in the story. The cover illustration (Bloomberg as Knight in Shining Armor) was a bit over the top as was my comment (more misplaced than it was over the top since many people were saying it) that he’d make a good education president….. –peter m
Peter, Parents in NYC are still complaining about the Bloomberg-Klein model of imposing changes without any consultation with local communities. Reformers forget that the parents have the biggest stake of all in what happens to their children. If asked, who cares more about children, the Mayor or their parents, it is not a hard question to answer. Somehow, across the country, these top-down measures are imposed mostly on poor black communities, as those their schools are causing low test scores. The schools and teachers may in fact be heroic, working against the odds to help children who live in desperate circumstances. I have yet to see a “reform” that succeeded despite the opposition of local communities. Democracy is still a good idea.
Diane, even Joel Klein admitted that he could have done the parent involvement thing better. And all the reformers that I’m talking to these days are talking about partnerships and parent involvement…. Hey, this is fun. How ’bout a Bridging Differences Sequel? –pm
If Joel Klein had not had contempt for parents, parent engagement would have been easy. He never tried. He sat at school board meetings working his Blackberry while parents cried about the closure of their neighborhood schools. He didn’t give them the respect of listening. Or even pretending to listen.
Peter, sorry to say you are not on my radar screen. But I thought it useful to identify you to my regular readers. And, for your info, I don’t have enemies. Not even you! There are people I disagree with, but they are not my enemies. Speak for yourself.
Point taken, Diane. And I’m more than happy not to be on your radar screen 🙂
” . . . while working very hard with my African-American friends, in the town where I served on the school board, to get a charter school where black kids could get a decent education.”
Peter,
I hope you didn’t mean to imply that black kids in your small city, public school district were somehow deprived of a decent education (hence the need for a charter school). I hope you didn’t mean to imply that the opportunities for academic success in the very unique and diverse Hudson River valley school district where you served were only afforded to white kids – that teachers somehow applied a racist agenda in their attempts to sabotage the education of the black kids. If so, this is an outrageous claim. If not, please explain why, in your view, only the black kids needed charter choice to get that decent education.
So here’s the problem with this framework:
Are there times when some sort of intervention is appropriate when a governing body becomes corrupted? Yes, absolutely.
Was Newark a mess two decades ago? There’s a very good case to be made that it was and that state control was appropriate and necessary.
However — it’s been two decades. If the state has not made adjustments to the governance of Newark’s schools after that amount of time to avoid a resurgence of corruption, that is the state’s problem, not Newark’s. Denying local control for two decades on the basis of these old sins is absurd and, frankly, racist.
During these two decades of state control, there have been several high-profile examples of white, suburban school districts engaging in behavior that was far WORSE than anything that happened in Newark Yet these districts retain full control of their schools:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/02/local-control-in-new-jersey-its-not-for.html
The judge who sentenced Michael Ritacco of Tom’s River called it the worst case of corruption he had ever seen. Yet Tom’s River retains local control. The hypocrisy is stunning.
The corruption found in Newark two decades ago may have been a justification for the state stepping in. It is no longer a viable excuse, especially when the state insists on foisting superintendents like Cami Anderson and Chris Cerf on to Newark — people who wouldn’t even get an interview in suburban districts because of their complete lack of qualifications for the job.
NO ONE should have to “earn” the right to democracy.
“(We) are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Poor, poor Cami Anderson! She was mistreated in Newark! I am a Newark teacher and Anderson’s misguided policies have turned my successful career into a living hell. I have spent the last two weeks investigating exit strategies.
The liberators made things worse. They have not met their self proclaimed goals, they have disenfranchised the community, and they provide less support than they did before regarding support and supplies for the school. If this is liberation, bring back the oppression, at least the people had a voice in it. Are you saying that the community shouldn’t have relief from poverty to help their schools? This misguided notion of the schools being immune from other social factors only ruins the schools. Pity the children indeed, they need health care, a decent place to live, and a host of social interactions their impoverished parents and community can not provide. The schools are the least of their problems. Your liberating army has become a tyrant conqueror.
I think there’s a mistake: one of the signatories is actually a Newark resident.
Tim, your sarcasm misses the point. This is intentionally signed by folks who live outside of Newark, to show that they support Newark in this battle. If you aren’t aware of Newark residents’ efforts to win their freedom, you have not been paying attention.
I believe strongly in local control and in directly elected school boards. It’s why I find Diane’s stance on mayoral control in New York City to be so puzzling.
That said, there are many truths in Peter Meyer’s comment. I think that the state’s takeover of NJ was probably justified. I am also concerned by the editorial the mayor wrote in the New York Times proposing a short but unspecified return to mayoral control. The devil is in the details, and those details should be hashed out by actual stakeholders.
Allowing Newark to made those decisions is precisely the point of this statement.
Save Our Schools NJ, the members of the current board were elected to join a body that has no real power, not a fully functioning board of education. The voting public knows that the stakes are low, and as a result candidates have not been held up to the kind of scrutiny and analysis that should be a requirement for assuming such an important role. In the last election, fewer than 3% of Newark’s registered voters cast a vote for the winning school board candidates, and each winning candidate received fewer votes than Mitt Romney (!) did in 2012.
If and when state control ends in Newark (or mayoral control ends in New York City), the hand-off should be directly to a democratically elected board with full powers, comprised of members who were elected to do that very job. Anything less runs the risk of empowering special interests rather than stakeholders.
NJ School State Take-Overs:
Jersey City – 24 years
Paterson – 22 years
Newark – 18 years
Camden – 2 years
Take-over? or Occupation?
Zero net effect.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/26/camden-schools-takeover/2021483/
Tim
Your democratically elected board with full powers is one of the prime reason for the disintegration of public schools. Sure, let’s add another layer of superfluous distraction onto an already unwieldy bureaucracy. Would you like the “butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker to judge you, and make decisions about matters in which they have no expertise. Not likely. What qualifications do people with no expertise have that allows them to make decisions about educational matters. We live in a world where teachers are required to teach esoteric material designed for the specially initiated few. Yet board members have the audacity to vote on subject matter that is completely out of their bailiwick. The board should be elected by teachers, and run by teachers. Community representatives must act as watchdogs, and guardians of the budget to insure that there is no corruption in the process. The schools are being administered by “garden variety” teachers who jumped ship because it paid better, and got them put of the classroom and then received certification by so called ‘educators’ in college education departments. That’s a euphemism for someone who never taught, but knows it all. They and the boards have been corrupted by corporate computer ‘wise guys’ who seized upon this ruse called charter schools, which was originally created to give a racist white middle class an opportunity to circumvent the de-segregation laws. Bill Gates and his cohorts recognized that in good times and in bad there was always federal money earmarked for education, so they and Pearson devised a plan to divert that money into their digital domain by bribing government and local politicians, giving them a cash cow that will sustain their businesses ad infinitum. Then they coerced willing school administrators to demean teachers on account of a few ‘bad apples,’ and now intimidation and intrigue has permeated the entire school environment. Adding insult to injury, the legal profession instituted frivolous lawsuits that have created a litigious environment, and created an atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust between staff and within the ranks of the administration. Greed, and meddling by a handful of arrogant ideologs like Mike Blumenthal, who handpicked Joel Klein, a Benedict Arnold if ever there was one, as Chancellor of Education, has corrupted and permeated the process of public education. He was hired to protect and improve the system. Instead he spent his entire tenure touting the benefits of Charter Schools, and now he is a major investor in the for-profit schools industry. There were many charlatans along the way like Michelle Rhee with 3 failed years as a teacher, who single-handedly destroyed the Washington DC system after being named Chancellor. They will win if we don’t change the culture within the schools by eliminating administrative titles, and replace them with support personnel culled from the senior staff, on a rotating basis so that there is never a opportunity for intimidation, coercion, and conflict within the schools. I could wax on and on, but I wish that you pundits would start to address the realities that teachers face every day, and begin to promote concrete changes that will benefit the teachers and their students. The only people who count in the educational process are the teachers and their students. Everyone else is superfluous. Check out newmoneyforoldrope.com, and learn the truth.