Education, taxes, housing, immigration, politics, and other issues that affect the people of New Jersey
Gov. Chris Christie and state-appointed Newark schools superintendent Cami Anderson are complicit in the evasion of laws and regulations governing the regulation of charter schools. Those are political decisions because they support the privatization of public education. What is incomprehensible to me is why so many organizations and community groups opposed to the privatization of public education in New Jersey have failed to act aggressively in the face of continued violation of the law.
Today’s guest blog was written by Jordan Thomas, a senior at Newark’s University High School where he is valedictorian and earned a 4.5 GPA. He was admitted to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Rutgers and will attend Princeton in the fall. He plans to go to law school and become a Constitutional lawyer. He was the student member of the Newark School Advisory Board for this school year. He delivered these remarks at Tuesday night’s board meeting.
State-appointed Newark schools superintendent Cami Anderson sent out an email late yesterday saying she had all but miraculously found a way to prevent massive teacher layoffs that had been predicted earlier. She also promised to stay in her job at least until next year.
Hundreds of students burst out of beleaguered University High School in Newark this morning to protest what they fear are sweeping changes to a school that has been one of the highest ranking in the state for years. The changes denounced by the students included Friday’s firing of the magnet school’s principal and six vice principals, the possible reassignment of the school’s teachers and a new “direction” for the successful school..
The chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Schools has asked the state education commissioner, the state attorney general, and the state comptroller to coordinate an investigation into the state’s operation of the Newark school district. He asked many of these questions before–and, so far, the Christie Administration and its legislative allies, including Democrats, have stonewalled his efforts and covered up the possible violations of law.
The president of the Newark Teachers Union has sent an e-mail to its membership predicting state-appointed schools superintendent Cami Anderson will soon leave ker position.
Acting state Education Commissioner David Hespe has agreed to meet with representatives of the Newark students who shut down a city school board meeting Tuesday night with their demands for the resignation of state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson.
Newark’s school superintendent belongs to that tribe of self-proclaimed and irresponsible school reformers who contend public schools must be “disrupted” before they can be improved–and she has done so much disrupting that scores of clergy have warned of “catastrophic” consequences. Last night, she faced disruption aimed at her, a group of high school students who stopped a board meeting with their non-stop chants and sat in for the night. Maybe longer.
To the stupidity, unworkability, and sheer arrogance of Cami Anderson’s “One Newark” school enrollment plan, add yet another trait—cruelty. Cruelty to children and their parents. And nothing is crueler than the plan’s alleged “appeal” process for those parents unhappy with the choices made for their children by faceless bureaucrats using an algorithm the public is not allowed to see.
The hedge-fund managers, the mainstream media, Cami Anderson’s friends in Montclair and Glen Ridge–during the election, they all tried to depict Ras Baraka as a revolutionary, as a radical, as a dangerous man with “fiery” and “incendiary” ideas and close ties to gangs. This was racist libel, of course, and it didn’t work but Newark’s new mayor should consider using those fears to the advantage of the city’s residents.