Newark Schools See Red Ink
New chief puts gap at as much as $20 million, vows to make cuts that won’t harm education
The Newark school district faces a budget hole of $15 million to $20 million going into the new academic year, its officials said Tuesday.
Chris Cerf, who took over as superintendent of the state-operated district last month, said the financial picture was “very, very tough,” but he aimed to close the gap in the nearly $1 billion budget without boosting class size or hurting instruction.
He disclosed the budget gap in his first appearance before the Newark Schools Advisory Board. His predecessor, Cami Anderson , stopped attending the group’s monthly meetings about a year and a half ago. Facing critics demanding her ouster, she said the often raucous board meetings had devolved into personal attacks.
Mr. Cerf has said he wants to bring a new era of trust, transparency and civil discourse to the district.
The audience of several hundred people was mostly polite, but there were some loud expressions of disbelief at his statistics about the large number of parents seeking to send children to public schools outside their neighborhoods. A few people shouted out calls for no more school closures and others protested state control of the schools.
The Newark district has gained national attention for rancorous fights over its future. Gov. Chris Christie sought to make the low-performing system a national model for reform, but opponents say his administration’s top-down approach has ignored community voices.
In June the Republican governor, who is running for president, appointed a panel to find a way to return to local control of the state’s largest school district.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a former high school principal under Ms. Anderson, showed up to push for local control. He said her complex school overhaul plan, called One Newark, should be dismantled as soon as possible.
“We have to say flat out philosophically it didn’t work,” he said.Newark Schools See Red Ink - WSJ:
