Archives for category: Newark
Newer Entries »

Bob Braun: Cami’s Disastrous Appearance at Hearing

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2015 //
44

Bob Braun, who worked as an investigative reporter in Néw Jersey for decades until he retired, here describes Cami Anderson’s disastrous appearance before a committee of the Néw Jersey state legislature responsible for state-operated schools.

Anderson was appointed superintendent of the Newark public schools by Governor Chris Christie. The district has not had local control for 20 years but it does have a school board. Anderson refuses to attend the meetings of the powerless board. Anderson imposed a plan called “One Newark,” which caused upheaval and resistance as students were reassigned, and some neighborhood schools were closed and converted to charters.

Braun begins his post like this:

“Not a great day for Cami Anderson.

“The chairman of the legislative committee that oversees state-operated school districts Tuesday accused the state-appointed Newark superintendent of “taking the fifth” because she repeatedly refused to discuss her personal and business ties to a Newark charter school leader to whose organization she sold a Newark public school at less than fair market value. Anderson also was openly caught in a lie when she insisted before the Joint Committee on Public Schools (JCPS) that no school principals were in so-called “rubber rooms,” getting paid to do nothing–apparently unaware one of the principals was attending the hearing. She also was openly laughed at by committee members when she talked about a “legislative liaison” aide whom none had ever met.

“But the oddest thing that happened at the four-hour hearing was Anderson’s insistence that her reforms efforts should not be judged by falling state test scores because such scores were “inaccurate” and “unfair”–this, from a woman who has closed public schools and fired educators because of falling state test scores.

“Anderson, a woman who has shown nothing but smug contempt for critics, was reduced to offering what amounted to personal pleas that the legislators try to “understand my journey”or “my passion”–mawkish and overplayed efforts to depict herself as someone whose past helped her understand the problems of poor people. In the end, she had to be rescued after four hours by state Education Commissioner David Hespe who told the committee Anderson had had enough for one day and should be allowed to leave.

“Hespe wasn’t a witness. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. He was a sort of a minder–or, maybe, big brother– to hold Anderson’s hand (figuratively) while legislators from both parties relentlessly asked questions that demonstrated they failed to understand her genius and couldn’t give a damn about her journey through life and her passion for education. After her ordeal ended, Anderson refused to answer reporters’ questions and all but fled the committee room, chased by television cameras shining bright lights.”

Categories Charter Schools, New Jersey, Newark, Testing

Jersey Jazzman: When Rick Hess Invited Cami Anderson to Speak at AEI

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2014 //
33

Rick Hess has an admirable record of inviting people who represent different points of view to speak and answer their critics at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Rick invited me to speak when my book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education was published in 2010. I spoke, and then a panel of three people commented. One liked what I had to say, two disagreed. I responded. The auditorium was full, and a good time was had by all.

 

Rick recently invited Cami Anderson to speak about what she is doing in Newark, where she is the Superintendent, appointed by Governor Chris Christie. Newark has been under state control for nearly 20 years. Anderson is so controversial in Newark that she no longer attends meetings of the Board of Education, which is powerless. Newark has no democracy. Anderson has the power to do what she wants.

 

When Rick learned that a group of Newark students was coming to challenge Anderson, he was outraged that her freedom of speech might be abridged. He moved the meeting to a closed room.

 

Jersey Jazzman reports here on what happened, and includes a video of Anderson’s speech. She says that the number of critics in Newark are few in number. Jersey Jazzman disagrees. He points out that the mayoral election was a referendum on her plans. The following “few” are her critics, who did not have an opportunity to question Anderson at AEI:

 

Mayor Ras Baraka, who was elected in a race that became largely a referendum on Anderson.

 

His opponent, Shavar Jeffries, who lost because, even though he criticized Anderson, didn’t go as far as Baraka by calling for her removal.

 

The Newark City Council, which called for a moratorium on all of Anderson’s initiatives.

 

The Newark School Board, which, though powerless to remove her (we’ll get to that in a minute), voted “no confidence” in Anderson’s leadership and has tried to freeze her pay.

 

The students of Newark’s schools, who have walked out repeatedly to protest her actions.

 

Parents who have filed a civil rights lawsuit, alleging One Newark is “de facto racial segregation.” (It is.)

 

The teachers union, which claims Anderson has repeatedly refused to follow through on the provisions of the contract she negotiated.

 

77 of Newark’s religious leaders, who have said One Newark could be “catastrophic” and must not be implemented.

 

Anderson should have had the opportunity to confront some of her critics, perhaps Mayor Baraka and a representative of the students. She did not lose her freedom of speech. The people of Newark lost their democratic rights long ago. When will the people of Newark have the right to choose the school board that represents them and makes policies that reflect their wishes, as 95% of school districts in America do? That’s the debate that never happened.

 

 

 

 

– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/11/reality-leaves-newark-and-invades-rick.html#sthash.0ZTlh7E1.dpuf

 

 

Categories Newark

Bob Braun: Christie’s Newark Schools Break the Law

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2014 //
20

Veteran journalist Bob Braun is outraged by what is being done to the powerless Newark school district, now under state control for nearly 2 decades.

He says that Christie and his superintendent Cami Anderson are placing unqualified teachers in the classroom, assigning teachers to teach subjects for which they have neither experience nor certification.

Worse, “Anderson put more than 400 perfectly qualified and experienced teachers in rubber rooms while hiring almost as many new teachers from an organization she once led, Teach for America (TFA), a real waste of money in a district facing a $57 million deficit.”

Time for an investigation?

Categories New Jersey, Newark, Teach for America

Ras Baraka: How State Control of the Newark Schools Has Failed Newark’s Children

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2014 //
14

Ras Baraka, Mayor of Newark, wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times that shows what a disaster state control of the public schools has been in Newark, New Jersey.

 

The state took “temporary” control of the Newark schools in 1995. Reforms came and went; new programs came and went. Promises were made and broken. Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million went to a failed merit pay plan (merit pay has always failed yet politicians and naive philanthropists never give up).

 

Newark has had top-down control for nearly 20 years. Democracy was suspended. The children are no better off.

 

The state’s maladministration of Newark’s public schools continues to this day. When Superintendent Cami Anderson’s “Renew Schools” reform plan ran into difficulties because of its lack of public consultation, foundation dollars went to a community-engagement program. Yet the latest iteration, the “One Newark” plan, has only plunged the system into more chaos.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
Consider the reports I’ve received of Barringer High School (formerly Newark High School). Three weeks into the school year, students still did not have schedules. Students who had just arrived in this country and did not speak English sat for days in the school library without placement or instruction. Seniors were placed in classes they had already taken, missing the requirements they’d need to graduate. Even the school lunch system broke down, with students served bread and cheese in lieu of hot meals.

 

Baraka, an experienced educator, knows what should be done, but neither Governor Christie nor his hand-picked superintendent Cami Anderson listens to the elected representative of the people of Newark.

 

Baraka writes:

 

The real issues that reform should address are ensuring that every 3- or 4-year-old child is enrolled in a structured learning environment, and that all our teachers get staff development and training. We must be more effective at sharing best practices and keeping our class sizes manageable. If necessary, we should put more than one teacher in the classroom, especially for students from kindergarten to third grade.

We also need to fix additional problems like a historically segregated curriculum, which offers stimulating choices in wealthy suburbs but only the most basic courses to our inner-city children. And we must break the cycle of low expectations that some educators have of the children they teach, merely prescribing repeat classes if students don’t pass.

The first step in a transition to local control of Newark’s schools is a short-term transfer of authority to the mayor. I would quickly appoint a new superintendent. Once basic functions were restored to the district, we would move as soon as possible to return control to an elected school board with full powers.

It is clear that we cannot rely on the good faith of the state to respond expeditiously. Federal intervention appears our only recourse. I have written to the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights in support of the lawsuits that parents, students, advocates and educators in our city have brought, requesting that the federal government intercede. The right of Newark’s citizens to equitable, high-quality public education demands the return of local, democratic control.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, New Jersey, Newark

Sarah Jaffe: The Resurgence of Public Education Nation

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2014 //
6

Sarah Jaffee attended the October 11 meeting of Public Education Nation in Brooklyn, convened by the Network for Public Education, and she saw the emergence of a new and vital spirit of resistance and dedication to public education.

 

She noted the well-known bloggers and advocates on the stage and in the crowd, but the show-stopper, she said, was a student activist from Newark named Tanaisa Brown.

 

Tanaisa Brown of the Newark Student Union perhaps best set the tone for the day when she told the crowd that the movement needs to have a central message, a central idea. “Remember that there’s other people fighting for the same causes that you are,” she said. While each location has its own specific fights – in Newark, she noted, they’re fighting against the “One Newark” plan being imposed by Chris Christie and his appointed superintendent, Cami Anderson – the movement, she suggested, needs a positive vision to anchor it.

 

“We want community schools,” she said. “Not a community school that is now a charter school, but a school that is embedded in the community and helps out the parents, the teachers, and anyone else who lives there that can benefit from wraparound services at those schools.”

 

This idea came up again and again throughout the day. It is no longer enough to simply say no to the top-down reforms, high-stakes tests, charter schools and school closings. It is no longer even enough to strike, to hold dramatic actions, to speak out. The movement, the day seemed to suggest, needs to take the next step and figure out what it is for.

 

Tanaisa is an articulate representative of students. And she is right. Saying no is not enough. But she also knows that you can’t begin to build positive change until the negative forces now crushing students, teachers, administrators, and public schools are stopped. Cami’s “One Newark” must be stopped, and students are trying their best to stop it. It is hard to climb when someone keeps cutting out the rungs on the ladder beneath you. It is hard to make progress when someone keeps beating you with a whip and threatening your job, your income, your pension, your reputation.

 

Perhaps Jitu Brown said it simplest when he said that we can’t work an inside-outside strategy. We must directly confront and block the damaging movement that calls itself “reform.” Closing schools is not reform, it destroys families and communities. Jitu Brown and his group Journey for Justice are bringing civil rights complaints against the school-closing, privatization “reforms” in New Orleans, Newark, and Chicago.

 

When Tanaisa Brown was asked for her own vision, she said she would like to go to a school that had the arts, that had dance and music. She would like to go to a school that had foreign languages and a library. She would like a school that offered the liberal arts.

 

That doesn’t sound radical or crazy or far out. Why is that so far out of reach for students in cities like Newark and Detroit and Philadelphia? Why?

 

We must continue to stop what is wrong and we must continue to fight for what is right.

 

 

 

 

Categories Network for Public Education, Newark, Resistance, Students

Jitu Brown: “Reforms” Discriminate Against Our Children in Newark, New Orleans, and Chicago

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2014 //
9

Journey for Justice, led by Jitu Brown of Chicago, has filed complaints with the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, on behalf of children and parents in Newark, Chicago, and New Orleans, claiming that they are victims of discrimination.

 

Their children, parents say, are the victims of reformers. Maybe they mean well, but the results for the children have been disastrous.

 

Far from being “leaders of the civil rights issue of our time,” as the reformers assert, the reformers are violating the rights of black and brown children.

 

Jitu Brown, founder of the Journey for Justice, is a spokesperson for the angry parents of these cities. He says “reform” is actually “a hustle.”

 

Brown, a lifelong Chicago resident who has been working with inner-city schools and neighborhood organizations since 1991, says that school choice has really just been an excuse for politicians to sack neighborhood schools and funnel government money to charter operators, which operate schools that on average take just 64 percent of the money that their district counterparts take.
Brown points to a number of examples in which, he says, Chicago Public Schools intentionally sabotaged successful schools in an effort to prop up charters, using tactics like offering laptops and iPads to lure high-performing students out of traditional public schools and into charters.
“These people are almost like drug dealers and the children are the narcotics, and they flip ’em until they’re able to finally make enough profit,” he says. “That’s how drug dealers work. It’s no different. It’s really no different.”
A report from the Chicago Teachers Union (pdf) released last year detailed how Simon Guggenheim Elementary School in West Englewood was set up for failure, while Jacob Beidler Elementary School, in East Garfield Park, was set up for success. The two schools have similar percentages of low-income students, and both are in communities facing high rates of violence, but Guggenheim, the report says, was denied resources in order to destabilize the environment.
Brown alleges that Chicago Public Schools has done this on several other occasions, citing examples like Beethoven Elementary on the city’s South Side. Once a high-performing school in a poor community, it was inundated over a number of years with students from closed schools in different neighborhoods around the city that ultimately dragged the school’s test scores down to a level where it is now failing.
“[The school district has] been closing schools in this neighborhood since 1998 as they’ve been trying to gentrify the area,” he says. “Those closings accelerated around 2004. We realized that it wasn’t really about school improvement; it was about freeing up that public area for the incoming gentry….”

 

“In Newark, students and their parents in the city’s South Ward boycotted the first day of school to protest One Newark, the school-choice enrollment plan that moved some children far from their neighborhood schools. Weeks later, hundreds of high school students walked out of class in protest.
“More than a month after school started, some parents say that hundreds of children still have not been assigned a school, and frustrations over transportation issues, uncertainty about where to send their children and dissatisfaction over closed neighborhood schools have led to many more not showing up for class.
“For me, as a parent, I know that my children deserve better,” says Sharon Smith, a mother with three children in Newark schools. “And not because they’re just mine, but because every child deserves the best opportunity that they can receive with education. But that’s not happening here. The parents here are stuck with whatever decision the district makes.”
Smith and other critics have chided One Newark on behalf of families without cars, who, she says, sometimes have to put children on two buses to get them to school. The plan doesn’t provide wholesale transportation, and many charter schools don’t offer it.
Zuckerberg’s $100 million matched donation has vanished, mostly into pockets of contractors and consultants and given to teachers unions as back pay. As Vivian Cox Fraser, president of the Urban League of Essex County, famously remarked in a New Yorker story about the debacle, “Everybody’s getting paid, but Raheem still can’t read.”

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Orleans, Newark, Privatization

Bob Braun: Finally, Some Heroes in Newark: The Students

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2014 //
24

Bob Braun has been writing about the abusiveness and insensitivity of Cami Anderson’s “One Newark” plan. He has written that it has disrupted the lives of children and families, with no goal other than to sweep away neighborhood schools and impose charter schools. Newark has been under state control for nearly 20 years. In short, the people of Newark have had no say in the governance of their city’s schools, and now Chris Christie and Cami Anderson have decided to turn them over to private management.

Braun reports that the real heroes in this struggle for democracy are the high school students of Newark. While most of the adults seemed resigned and ready to bow to authority, the high school students went into the streets to protest. A group of them chained themselves together, sat down in the city’s main thoroughfare, and blocked traffic. The newly elected Mayor Ras Baraka tried to protect the students. He ran for office as an opponent of Cami and “One Newark,” but he has no power to stop her.

Braun wrote:

“Newark’s public schools will be saved from privatization only if supporters are willing to take risks. Yesterday, Newark finally saw some risk takers–the high school students and handful of adults who blocked Broad Street for eight hours, refusing in a very adult way to give up their lines despite an effort by police to plow through, and a mayor who risked criticism for not arresting the students.

“The children are doing what the adults are not doing because the adults are too scared to do it,” said Antoinette Baskerville-Richardson about the siege of board headquarters at 2 Cedar Street organized by the Newark Students Union. The school board member spent most of the day monitoring the protest.

“But did it make a difference? Will the risks taken by the students and Mayor Ras Baraka–the courageous actions taken yesterday by both –hasten the end of Anderson’s tenure? Will it quickly end the “One Newark” plan that has brought so much pain to so many city families?

“Maybe not. But this is what they will do: They will keep the fight alive, keep the light shining, in the face of the inertial forces that would try to gloss over the pain Anderson is causing and bring on a complacent, apathetic business-as-usual attitude that will allow Anderson to continue her plans unimpeded. Without the students, Anderson would be free to act without, not just restraint, but even without notice.”

Braun wrote:

“They’re coming for you.

“They’re coming for you in Wisconsin. In California. In New York–and, yes, in New Jersey. In places like Newark and Paterson–ask Paterson teachers about the great contract they “won” from the state-operated district. And. remember, the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), the people who almost made Shavar Jeffries mayor, believe tenure and other protections are the dam that “must be burst” to reform education.

“Think about it. Those are Democrats. They might eat your rights elegantly with some fava beans and a little Malbec–but they will do it every bit as effectively as the Koch Brothers who would just as soon have public employee union leaders jailed and shot.”

The kids were heroes. It is a very small gesture on my part to add them to the honor roll as heroes of American education. They are standing up for public education. They are standing up for democracy.

Categories Honor Roll, New Jersey, Newark, Students
Newer Entries »