Archives for category: Newark
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Newark: Chris Cerf to Union Leader: Drop Dead

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2017 //
25

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

Categories New Jersey, Newark, Unions

Newark: Charter School Begins to Close Down Less Than Two Months After Opening

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2017 //
22

On August 28, 2017, Governor Chris Christie proudly cut the ribbon with an over-sized scissors to mark the opening of the M.E.T.S. Charter School in Newark. He told the students that they would get every opportunity to succeed, and now it was up to them to decide how hard they wanted to work in school.

During Christie’s two terms in office, he has doubled the number of charter schools to 89.

Well, change that to 88.

Mercedes Schneider reports that the brand new charter school, not even two months old, has announced its plans to close by the end of the school year. Starting immediately, it is sending its students in 9th and 10th grades back to the much-maligned Newark Public Schools.

She writes:

“On October 19, 2017, M.E.T.S. sent the parents of its 9th and 10th graders this “special message” that their so-called school-choice “empowerment” was being immediately overridden by the vague determination of M.E.T.S. to immediately send all 9th and 10th graders back to the Newark Public Schools.

Of course, this profound, “special announcement” jolt– delivered by an “interim lead administrator”– is being framed as responsible, caring, and smooth.”

Then follows the text of the “special announcement.”

A story on a New Jersey website provides a few horrifying details about the shabby treatment of the children of Newark, bounced from one charter to another by “reformers:”

“Almost half of the students at the charter school have already been displaced once.

“District officials said 110 of the 140 students in grades 10-12 came from three closed charter schools — Newark Prep Charter School, Paulo Freire Charter School or Merit Prep Charter School — which were shut down by the state last school year for academic problems.“

Hey, Mark Zuckerberg, is this what your $100 million paid for? Constant disruption of children’s lives.

Categories Charter Schools, Failure, New Jersey, Newark

Jersey Jazzman: The Facts About Charter Schools in Newark

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2017 //
6

Jersey Jazzman, aka Mark Weber, experienced teacher and doctoral student at Rutgers, follows the claims of charter promoters in New Jersey, especially Newark. His latest post is simply “Facts About Newark Charter Schools.”

Bottom line: the charters do not enroll the same students as public schools. Why is that so hard for the media to understand?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, New Jersey, Newark, Privatization

Watch Newark Student Protest Live Now!

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2017 //
13
Categories Newark, Students

Bob Braun Reports: Student Sit-In in Newark

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2017 //
6

Bob Braun, veteran New Jersey reporter, just tweeted:

“BREAKING NEWS–Newark public school students have seized the offices of the Newark School Charter Fund and are staging a sit-in.”

Newark students are amazing. Eight of them staged a sit-in in Superintendent Cami Anderson’s office for four days in February 2015, vowing to stay until she quit. People from across the nation sent pizzas to them. In June 2015, Anderson quit.

Categories Newark, Resistance, Students

Good News: Vergara-Copycat Lawsuit Tossed Out by Judge in New Jersey

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
11

A judge in New Jersey threw out a lawsuit intended to remove teachers’ seniority rights. This is the third loss for the corporate reformer groups that have tried to use the courts to strip away teachers’ job security. The “reformers” blame teachers and unions for low test scores while ignoring overwhelming evidence that poverty is the proximate cause of low scores.

The first was the Vergara lawsuit in California, where a group called “Students Matter,” founded by a Silicon Valley billionaire, claimed that teacher tenure (due process of law) denied poor children equal opportunity. The plaintiffs won in the lowest court. They lost on appeal. And they lost again when they appealed to the states’ highest court.

A group found by former TV personality Campbell Brown called the Partnership for Educational Justice filed copycat suits in other states. One was tossed by a lower court.

Earlier this month, a judge in New Jersey dismissed a legal challenge to teacher seniority rules.

Rachel Cohen of The American Prospect reports on the corporate reformers’ latest defeat in court:

“Another legal effort to weaken teacher job protections through the courts has been dismissed, this time in the Garden State. On Wednesday afternoon, a New Jersey Superior Court judge tossed the latest case, ruling that the plaintiffs—six parents from Newark Public Schools—failed to prove that seniority-based layoffs harmed their students.

“Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ), a national education reform group that aims to challenge teacher job protections across the country, funded the New Jersey lawsuit. Originally filed in November, the case marked the third time PEJ has gone after tenure provisions. Their first case filed in New York in 2014, is currently before the state Supreme Court. In October, a Minnesota district judge dismissed PEJ’s second suit, filed there in 2016. That case has since been appealed.”

Campbell Brown’s news site, The 74, reported the outcome of the case.

“A New Jersey judge swiftly dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that challenged state rules requiring school districts to base teacher layoffs on seniority regardless of performance in the classroom.
New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson told a Trenton courtroom that the plaintiffs had failed to establish how seniority-based layoff rules known as “last in, first out” were harming their children.

“I don’t see any link other than speculation and conjecture between the LIFO statute and the denial of a thorough and efficient education to these 12 children,” Jacobson said.

“The lawsuit, HG v. Harrington, was filed in November on behalf of a dozen Newark students, claiming that “last in, first out” mandates governing teacher layoffs violate their right to a “thorough and efficient” and “equal” education system under the state Constitution.

“The complaint was sponsored by The Partnership for Educational Justice, a national education reform nonprofit founded by 74 co-founder Campbell Brown. Named defendants include the New Jersey State Board of Education and Newark Public School District.

“The American Federation of Teachers and the New Jersey Education Association, considered “intervening” defendants in the case, filed the motion to dismiss.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, Newark, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

A Teacher in Newark Writes: “Chaos by Design” Is Not Good for Students or Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2017 //
7

Ryan Heisinger is teaching in Newark. He is in his fourth year. He loves teaching. He wants to spend his career as a teacher. But he and everyone else in Newark has been subjected to constant disruption, on purpose.

For me, this year is mainly speeding by because of how much I’ve enjoyed it. This school year has reinvigorated me, further convinced me that I want to spend my career around kids. But after four years of teaching at three different schools with four different principals, I’d love to find a school at which I could settle in and make a long-term difference. The education landscape in my city, however, has left me worried that no such opportunity exists.

I’ve noticed a similar concern among many of my friends who became teachers around the same time I did. Indeed, my friends and I—and we’re not alone—feel that to stay in urban education and make a meaningful impact, we must make a major sacrifice: leave behind the kids who need the most support or forfeit our job stability.

These concerns are relatively new, the products of an alarming trend in urban education through which public school systems have become increasingly unstable as charter schools continue to take up a greater share of students in cities…

Lasting relationships with teachers and peers aren’t forged over just a few months. An amazing arts program takes years to build. It takes a long time to develop a wide variety of student-led extracurricular opportunities. School pride comes when students feel they are a part of a community in which they’re able to express themselves and show off their talents. But in a marketplace in which schools compete for test scores, narrowed priorities and school closures erode the stable soil teachers and administrators need to put roots down and grow an enduring culture of success and school community and pride.

I began my teaching career in a public high school just down the road from my current school, and while I remember it fondly and miss it in many ways, I have no illusions about the education my kids were receiving there. It was a mess. But the higher-performing charter I taught at last year had no art, no music, and no physical education, yet somehow the network was lauded as a model for urban schools. Indeed, in the marketplace, this is the model.

So while reformers tout my city as a school choice success story, I know the improved reading and math scores they cite as proof have come at a tremendous expense. The very system that produced those higher test scores is also denying my students and others like them across the city vital experiences and opportunities.

There must be a better way.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, New Jersey, Newark, Privatization

Cory Booker’s Dilemma: Does He Love Billionaire Betsy or Not?

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2017 //
48

 

 

Cory Booker has a warm relationship with Billionaire Betsy DeVos. But an ambitious Democrat can’t admit his admiration for a member of Trump’s cabinet in waiting.

 

Booker loves school choice. He made a mess of Newark with DeVos’s ideas. He was trying to turn it into Detroit and things didn’t go well. Journalist Dale Russakoff wrote a book, “The Prize,” about Booker’s ideological folly.

 

What’s a guy to do? Follow his heart and vote for her? Or follow his head and stay in good standing with his party?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Detroit, Newark

Politico: The Myth of Cory Booker

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2016 //
49

Politico published a fascinating analysis of Cory Booker’s slippery career as Mayor of Newark.

We previously learned in Dale Russakoff’s book “The Prize” about Booker’s rock-star status among the powerful New York City elites and his less than stellar performance as Mayor of Newark. Booker is a hero to Democrats for Education Reform, the group that always bets against public schools.

In this article, Amy S. Rosenberg digs into the myth of Cory Booker, his careful polishing of his image and his efforts to cement his ties to the rich and powerful, while keeping his eyes on the opportunity to move up and out of Newark. Rosenberg does not assess Booker’s big project of turning Newark into a national model of school reform, which was his single biggest failure.

What did he actually accomplish? Is Newark better off today because of Booker?

One thing we know for sure is that Cory Booker is tied at the hip to those who want to get rid of public education. He is close to Chris Christie and helped the governor run the public schools of Newark into to the ground, while persuading Mark Zuckerberg to fork over $100 million to turn Newark into a city of charters. We know how that worked out.

Booker became a darling of Manhattan neoconservatives because he supported both charters and vouchers.

It worked for Booker. It didn’t work for the children of Newark.

Now Booker is angling to become Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential choice.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it never happens.

Categories Democrats for Education Reform, New Jersey, Newark

Bob Braun: Who Pays the Salary of Chris Cerf’s Chief of Staff in Newark?

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2016 //
8

Bob Braun has written an astonishing column about the arrogance of power.

Chris Cerf, who was previously the Commissioner of Education in New Jersey, stepped in to take control of the Newark public schools after the unpopular Cami Anderson stepped down. Cerf is a bona fide reformer, having previously worked for for-profit Edison Schools and as deputy chancellor to Joel Klein in New York City.

Cerf’s chief of staff is De’Shawn Wright, who began his education career in Teach for America, then moved from one policy position to another.

Braun stumbles upon a mystery: Who pays Wright’s salary?

Wright, a champion of charter schools in Washington, DC, New York, and Newark, and past associate of Cerf and Cerf’s protégé and predecessor, Cami Anderson, is Cerf’s chief of staff, according to an organizational chart released at Tuesday night’s board meeting. Wright is paid a six figure salary but exactly how much is a secret–as is the source of his income.

Although Wright is probably the second most powerful figure in the Newark schools, he doesn’t work for the Newark schools.

Got that? Let’s repeat it: Although Wright is probably the second most powerful figure in the Newark schools, he doesn’t work for the Newark schools.

Who does he work for? Probably for the Fund for Newark’s Future–otherwise known as what’s left of the $100 million Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave to the Newark schools. But that hasn’t yet been confirmed because the fund is a private organization and not subject to New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA). Or some other private foundation devoted to the expansion of charter schools.

Braun began sleuthing:

So how can a school system hire as staff chief someone who doesn’t work for it?

Answer: It doesn’t. Someone else hires him–but you’re not allowed to know.

Only in Newark.

This reporter asked Valerie Wilson, the school’s business administrator, who pays Wright and how much and for whom he really works. She said she didn’t know.

Repeat that: The business administrator of the Newark schools doesn’t know who pays the superintendent’s chief of staff–or how much he is paid.

So then I asked board member Dashay Carter, who, to her credit, is one of the few board members uncomfortable with this unique arrangement.

“We haven’t been told,” she said.

Newark school board members, elected by the city’s residents, are not allowed to know who pays the salary of the superintendent’s chief of staff.

So then this reporter asked Wright who pays his salary. He said I should ask the press officer for Cerf and then he literally ran away. Well, ok, he walked fast away.

Wright refused to say who pays him.

Braun spent 50 years as an investigative reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger. He couldn’t stand not knowing. But no one is talking.

What gives?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Newark
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