Is Hespe lying? Afraid of Cami? Disrespectful of parents? All three?
Nearly a month ago, the parents of Newark’s Hawthorne Avenue School petitioned acting Education Commissioner David Hespe to ensure the school would not be closed without compliance with state administrative regulations that have the force of law. Hespe, a lawyer who is charged with a special obligation to uphold the law, has not only ignored the parents but he also has treated them with a contempt that raises the question whether he is fit to continue in his position.
The Hawthorne Avenue parents, like most parents of Newark school children, are black or brown and poor and accustomed to shabby treatment from the administration of Gov. Chris Christie. But this goes beyond shabby–this is treating New Jersey citizens with the sort of disrespect that might have been expected from Mississippi in 1962.
Like most of the problems plaguing the parents of Newark school children, this begins with the flawed and reckless plan by Cami Anderson to close a half-dozen schools and turn them into markets for privately-operated charter schools whose leaders have close personal and business ties both with Anderson and Hespe’s predecessor, Christoper Cerf.
One of those schools is Hawthorne Avenue, a school in the South Ward that has outpaced peer schools throughout the state in student achievement. But Anderson has promised the South Ward to TEAM Academy Charter Schools–headed by a Montclair resident named Is Hespe lying? Afraid of Cami? Disrespectful of parents? All three? | Bob Braun's Ledger: