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 allowed to see.
What would you think an appeal process would be? Your children didn’t get into their first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh choice—so you appeal, asking Anderson’s overpaid minions to reconsider those rejections, right?
No, wrong. Dead wrong.
Cami Anderson’s appeal process is a cruel trick. A poison pill aimed at preventingany appeals. An act of extortion to keep protests down.
Why? Because the very fact of appealing means parents will lose whatever little “choice” they had in his Potemkin Village of a school choice plan. They will watch their children be assigned to schools they can’t possibly attend—or wouldn’t want to under any circumstances.
This is how it works. If you appeal the decision made by people working at 2 Cedar Street, you “forfeit” the chance to go to any school your child may have wanted to attend. Your child will be put into “Round Two” and placed in schools apparently few students applied to in Round One.
In fact, the appeal isn’t an appeal at all—it’s a request to forfeit choice.
Parents have been told this:
“Students who received a Round One match are expected to attend that school in the fall. If family or student circumstances have change since the application wasChoice–or child abuse? | Bob Braun's Ledger: