1) Formally recommend to state Education Commissioner David Hespe that the school board receive a score of 80 on the QSAC accountability score, thereby returning the governance prerogative to the local board. Gov. Chris Christie and Newarsk superintendent Christopher Cerf also should apologize for manipulating past QSAC scores for political reasons to keep Newark schools under state control.
2) Put an immediate end to the “One Newark” enrollment plan and allow children to attend their neighborhood schools. End the advantages the plan gives to charter schools.
3) Immediately stop the wholesale transfer of teachers required by the “turnaround” plan–and apologize for using a so-called education “reform” as retribution for the refusal of teachers to weaken their collective bargaining agreement.
4) Rehire to regular classroom positions the hundreds of teachers declared “educators without placement” and stop hiring Teach for America scabs to replace them.
5) Announce an immediate moratorium on the opening or expansion of privately operated, publicly funded charter schools AND return the $25 million in public funds diverted to charter schools from the neighborhood public school budget.
6) Give six months’ notice of Cerf’s intention to resign his position as state-imposed school superintendent and to surrender that position to a superintendent chosen by the elected Newark school board.
7) Admit that the so-called “reforms” occurring under Chris Chrtie’s leadership–such as “turnaround” and “renew” were failures, apologize for them and pledge that, once Cerf resigns from his post, he and Christie will join with the people of the Newark to demand that the Legislature an restore full funding to Newark as required by law so the district can execute ts plans to rejuvenate community, neighborhood schools.
I would like to also add the following:
8. Return to the neighborhoods the public schools that were taken away from them and turned into charter schools.
9. End all existing renewed/turn-around schools, as they are now in Newark, and return them to public schools with the same hours of operation as all other public schools in Newark.
10. Create wrap-around programs, add the arts back into the schools, return the attendance officers and other support staff, such as teacher assistants, and create neighborhood schools that are used as true neighborhood/community schools.