Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All Week
How To Destroy the Teaching Corps: Use Charter Schools
Charter schools have proven very useful to plutocrats for a variety of reasons:- They help make already wealthy people even more money: see here, here and here for just a few examples. Those of you on newspaper editorial boards who live in denial of money making potential of charter schools are willingly obtuse.- They provide an excuse for not raising taxes on the wealthy to full fund urban school
"One Newark": A Market For "Lemons"
I've got a new brief over at the NJ Education Policy Forum out today about One Newark. As usual, I present my geekspeak-free (mostly) version of this brief here.Here's the background: Cami Anderson, the state-appointed superintendent of Newark, has put out a plan to restructure the district's schools. Bruce Baker* and I have written a lot about the flaws in this plan, called One Newark: see here,
MAY 21
Why Didn't Anyone Ask Christie About the Pensions in 2013?
If you are at all shocked by this, you just haven't been paying attention:In a stunning reversal, Gov. Chris Christie today announced plans to grab, over two years, $2.43 billion meant for public workers' pensions to balance New Jersey's ailing state budget. The plan threatens to derail one of Christie's signature accomplishments in Trenton — a series of reforms to replenish New Jersey's strained
MAY 18
Chris Christie: Lying Liar, or Completely Clueless?
Give The Auditor, the Star-Ledger's weekly political insider column, credit for catching Chris Christie's latest lie - although, in my opinion, this merits much stronger language:Gov. Chris Christie joined an exclusive club last week — governors who get shellacked with six downgrades of their state’s credit rating. The only other member in the entire country? Democrat Jim McGreevey.The most recent
MAY 17
Another Day, Another "Miracle" Charter School Debunked
Some of you who read this blog might think I've got something against charter schools. I really don't; I started my career in a charter. There are some good charters out there, and a few really excellent ones. We can even have a discussion about the similarities between urban families who enroll their children in charter schools and families who move to the suburbs to enroll their children in low-
The Cami cover-up
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 […]
MAY 21
Is Cami leaving?
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. Joseph Del Grosso said he and other union officials met earlier this week both with Acting Education Commissioner David Hespe and legislative leaders. He said he came away from those meetings […]
Hespe to meet with Newark students
Acting state Education Commissioner David Hespe has agreed to meet with representatives of the Newark students who shut down a Newark school board meeting Tuesday night with their demands for the resignation of the state-appointed superintendent, according to sources in the city. The meeting, if it occurs, would represent a major coup for city forces arrayed […]
MAY 20
Cami wanted disruption–and, last night, she got it
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 […]
MAY 19
Choice–or child abuse?
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 […]
MAY 18
Hey, Ras–you’re not going to rock the boat, are you?
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 […]