Is Cami leaving? Or just hiding?
Cami Anderson, the controversial state-appointed superintendent of Newark schools, has disappeared from the city for the last few weeks, fueling rumors she is planning on leaving. Her absence comes just as the mayoral race—in which she is issue number one—tightens up and her champion, Shavar Jeffries , receives huge amounts of campaign funds from pro-privatization sources to pay for attack ads against Ras Baraka.
Anderson, who makes nearly $300,000 a year in public funds, has been in Arizona and California the last few weeks and is planning another trip to Colorado—although she has n ot received permission from local officials for the trips. She has been attending private conferences sponsored by pro-charter groups despite growing tensions at home over her “One Newark” plan that closes neighborhood public schools and launches new privately-operated charter schools.
Anderson also has ignored demands she appear before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Schools to explain “One Newark” and her sale of public property to TEAM Academy charters, an especially favored brand of charter in the city one of whose founders is Jeffries. Her staff told one Republican legislator on the committee who called to talk to her to submit his questions in writing.
Some high-level sources in Trenton are convinced she is leaving—and soon. They say David Hespe, the acting state education commissioner who replaced her chief sponsor, Christopher Cerf, is looking for a way to ease her out of office before the “One Newark” plan slides into chaos. The Newark school administration already is almost a month behind in assigning schools to the thousands of families who filled out the so-called “Universal Application.” By her own admission, some children may not know what schools they are attending until days before the new year opens. She also admits Is Cami leaving? Or just hiding? | Bob Braun's Ledger: