Thanks to Bob Braun for posting this exchange.
The president of the Newark Teachers Union wrote the following letter to the chair of the Newark school board, which just regained local control after 22 years of state control:
Marques-Aquil Lewis
Board Chairperson
Newark Board of Education
Dear Mr. Lewis:
Congratulations on receiving full local control back to the Newark Board of Education.
As the elected representatives of all the NBOE’s highly skilled professional instructional workforce, paraprofessionals, Child Study Team members and various therapists servicing students, the NTU respectfully requests we be included in any plan, and be seated on any committee established by the NBOE to develop a full transition plan for the return to local control of the district pursuant to NJAC Title 6A.
As we have throughout the takeover, we remain at your service and the service of the needs of Newark’s students, their parents and community.
Sincerely,
John M Abeigon
President & Director of Organization
Newark Teachers Union, Local 481, AFT, AFL-CIO
Christopher Cerf, the State-appointed leader of the Newark schools (after serving as Chris Christie’s State Commissioner of Education in New Jersey and before that, Joel Klein’s Deputy Chancellor) writes the following response to the union leader:
Five hours after Abeigon sent his note, Cerf responds like this:
From: “Cerf, Christopher” Date: Oct 4, 2017 8:53 PM Subject: Re: Congratulations & Request to Serve To: “John Abeigon” Cc: “Randi Weingarten” , “Lewis, Marques-Aquil”
Not happening in this or any lifetime.
SENT FROM MY IPHONE
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great, because, you know, teenybopper rhetoric really enhances the credibility of public officials.
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*** OFF-TOPIC but breathtaking news!!! * ***
(with a Newark, New Jersey connection, no less … READ ON)
The Summit Charter School “Rape-gate” civil suit in San Jose, CA settled THE DAY AFTER MY LONG POST ABOUT IT ON THIS BLOG.
Mind you, this was after the local Northern California media had strangely and earlier went cold following its initially thorough coverage of this sordid affair.
Coincidence?
I think not. (or at least I strongly suspect not.😉 )
If I was indeed instrumental in any way in providing a positive outcome, or an early closure for the rape victim and her family …
Well, then, I want a medal! (Just kidding.)
(That’s something my late father would say when I showed him something like a perfect 100 score on a test or something.
“Whadda you want a medal?” )
The downside, of course, is that Summit Charter School Chain — noted for its replacing live teachers with computer-based “personalized learning”, btw — can now bury this embarrassing debacle with a sealed verdict that, in exchange for big $$$, the victim and her family have to clam up forever after … much like the Weinstein victims … until a few weeks ago, that is.
This case apparently involved a different kind of … errr… “personalized learning”, if you know what I mean. 😉
No media covered this Summitt Rape-gate settlement, by the way.
The fear that it would get greater and extensive coverage here on the Ravitch blog, or elsewhere may have pushed the Summit folks (who include Mr. and Mrs. Zuckerberg, no less) to end this whole civil suit forthwith. Mr. and Mrs. Z. were involved in another debacle in Newark, New Jersey, when they coughed up $100 million to close public schools and convert them to privately-managed charter schools. (That worked our so well for the students at the M.E.T.S. Newark Charter School earlier this week.)
To recap, I posted all this Summit Rape-gate stuff” — complete with links — on the Ravitch blog on September 6, 2017, complete with pictures of all the persons involved (almost all … not the teen victim, of course):
(Check out the COMMENTS Section BELOW for a refresher course on the Summit Charter School Rape-Gate in San Jose, CA … again complete with photos. It’s quite a yarn. You won’t be able to stop reading, let me tell ya!)
According to the court’s website, the attorneys for the victim and Summit settled *Rape-gate” THE VERY NEXT DAY!!! (September 7, 2017)
https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_State_Santa_Clara_County_Superior_Court/16CV302178/N.V._vs_Summit_Public_Schools_et_al/
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
*”9 / 7 / 2017 — NOTICE: Settlement Atty Mark Boskovich”*
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
(Boskovich is one of the two attorneys representing the victim, the lead being B. Robert Allard, arguably the most effective attorney for victims of teacher molestation, who regularly delivers multi-million-dollar settlements for his clients.
Okay, Attorney Allard may have played a small role in settling Rape-gate as well … but still 😉 )
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Do we need any more evidence of the arrogance and nastiness of these people? And this from someone who has done nothing but fail (unless, like most so-called reformers, you consider being a serial school killer to be “success”) as a so-called educator and manager, going back to his days with the spectacularly unsuccessful Edison Project.
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Christopher Cerf is an arrogant p _ i _ k deserving of Thomas Jefferson’s wrath.
In seven words, Cerf revealed who his masters are, and they are not the people or the U.S. Constitution and the Republic that document is supposed to guide.
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Right in line with the venom of Trumpsters. Not a grain of civility in this response, and made worse by thinking a fly-by iPhone response is good enough for official business. The sooner this guy finds another line of work the better. I hope every union worker in New Jersey gets a copy of this along with any other public officials who might grasp the obscenity…and be and be outraged. I hope the newspaers and TV stations expose this guy as an absolutedictory who does not give a ….about education.
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Eight painful years of this many headed Chris/Chris Hydra of anti public school rhetoric and actions. Christie and Cerf have done their damnedest to destroy NJ’s highly rated public schools, especially in the cities such as Newark and Camden. Destroy, destroy, destroy, that’s all these two gargoyles know. I hope these two scum are out of NJ education forever, they have done enough damage. You can be certain I will be voting for Murphy.
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YES. I’ve always thought of what has happened in Newark and Camden as being the metaphoric putting of “a bull in the china shop.” Wrongheaded, illogical and transparently destructive even before instigated.
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A copy of this should be sent to the NY area media outlets and newspapers so the public can see exactly what kind of individual they are dealing with and that the union reached out to Cerf in good faith…
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My favorite part of the exchange is that Cerf doesn’t know how to change his email signature so it will stop saying “Sent from my iPhone.”
I thought school privatizers were tech-proficient.
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This is pure, raw, white-hot teacher hate at its best/worst.
Corporate reformers will deny this, and claim, “Oh, Cerf loves teachers. It’s the evil unions and their leaders that he has a problem with.”
In WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, Jonathan Alter attempts to float the same canard, “On the one hand, you have the teachers, who are admirable, but on the other hand, you have the teacher unions, which are are total menace.”
No, the unions are its teacher members, with the leaders elected by those rank-‘n-file teachers.
In Cerf’s mind and in the mind, the teachers are “The Help” — much like the maids in that movie. They should just shut up, accept lousy pay, lousy or no benefits, horrible working conditions, and if they have a problem with any of that… quit or shut up.
To them, teachers are not professionals on a par with doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. They’re more like maids, or lawn maintenance workers, or office temps.
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I love it! Another deformster makes himself a liability to the privatization gang with a poorly thought out act of disgrace. I’m simply elated right now.
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I cannot believe that the BOE would not want the expertise of its professional staff in planning for the district. What successful organization doesn’t use the professional talent of the people they hired in planning for favorable outcomes?
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Re-read what I just posted above.
Corporate reforms such as Cerf view teachers as “The Help”.
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I don’t have to reread it; I agree with it (however badly worded). My statement was made out of a sense of exasperation and incredulity at the incompetence of those who are supposed to lead.
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cx: however badly I worded it
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” .. however badly worded … ”
Thanks for that one!!! 😉
BTW, I never proof what I read. I just type, then immediately hit “POST COMMENT”, so that explains the “badly worded” quality of my posts.
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Take note of my correction: “however badly I worded it” Your post was clear. It was mine that was lacking in clarity.
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I could obviously stand to proof my comments. Sorry for the confusion.
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Unemployment January 1?
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I just found an article that Cerf wrote in the 74 back in April.
He writes:
“Consider this thought experiment: If tomorrow all 15,500 charter school students in Newark returned to NPS, we would need to acquire buildings, buy supplies, hire new teachers, and take responsibility for these and myriad other costs.”
Sorry, but in my “thought experiment” all those things transferred across to the public system – it was a zero-sum transaction!
Wait, I’ll try the thought experiment again …
… nup, same result!
We have the same sorts of muppets here in Australia make the same hypothesis about Catholic / private schools suddenly closing (no time for me to go through all those arguments here, but happy to expand on it later if you’d like). Not much “thought” in Mr Cerf’s “thought” experiment!
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David,
All of those students used to attend the Newark Public Schools. Your point is well taken.
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Well, for 500 or so of these Newark charter school students, it’s not “a thought experiment” at all, but their unfortunate reality. Indeed, the Cerf-backed and Christie-backed M.E.T.S. Newark Charter High School charter just exploded like the Hindenburg — less than two months after its heralded opening:
Is M.E.T.S. keeping the millions of dollars that was allocated for those students in school year 2017-2018, or will it follow those students?
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“Well, for 500 or so of these Newark charter school students, it’s not “a thought experiment” at all, but their unfortunate reality”
Of course! Bet Cerf is choking on his words from April now …
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This is the first time I’ve seen charter OVERSIGHT become a campaign issue, apart from education, oversight of finances:
“Democratic attorney general candidate Steve Dettelbach signaled Friday he plans to make a campaign issue out of Republican rival Dave Yost’s history with a troubled Ohio online charter school.
The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is fighting the state’s claim that it owes $60 million for misrepresenting its enrollment. A review found that the school had proper documentation for only 6,300 of its 15,300 students – a 59 percent gap, The Plain Dealer reported in the 2015-16 school year. ECOT was found to owe the state another $19 million for the 2016-17 school year.
“For years, politicians failed to ask for ECOT’s actual attendance books and hold them accountable for cheating taxpayers, because they were too busy cashing campaign checks from those associated with the school,” Dettelbach, a former U.S. attorney, said Friday in a speech in Westerville.”
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2017/10/troubled_charter_school_ecot_b.html
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The ‘blame the teacher’ movement is a sinking ship with this guy on the bow!
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