New Jersey Columnist: Cry for Newark
Bob Braun was a reporter for 50 years for the Newark Star-Ledger. These days he blogs about the public school crisis in Newark, New Jersey. Newark’s public schools have been under state control for two decades. As in most places, state takeover has never worked in Newark. Today the strings are being pulled by Governor Chris Christie and Cami Anderson—the state-appointed overseer superintendent, alternatively trained at the Broad Academy and formerly employed by Joel Klein in New York.
Anderson has brought a plan, One Newark, to take over neighborhood schools, bring in KIPP and other charter management companies, and give parents school choice. Newark has erupted this spring as parents have continued to defend their neighborhood public schools. This blog has recently covered the school crisis in Newark here, here, here, and here.
Last week Braun described the botched roll-out of Anderson’s One Newark plan. By mid-April, Anderson had promised to announce to parents their children’s school choice match assignments for next fall. But in a letter posted on the school district’s website and notes sent home with children in backpacks, she delayed the assignments until mid-May. Anderson and her staff have been unable to finalize a transportation plan, there have been problems placing students with special needs, and it turns out many parents did not apply for school choice, which means there must be a second application process. According to Braun, “One Newarkwas not only unworkable in design but now the state regime running the schools is so incompetent it can’t figure out what to do about the transportation and special education problems it created.” Anderson “still doesn’t know how to handle the placement of special education students, especially those whose parents might want to go to charter schools that are unprepared to deal with them.”
According to New Jersey Spotlight, just last week in the midst of the school district