Cami Anderson was right
Cami Anderson, Newark’s now disgraced superintendent, was many things. Arrogant. Mendacious. Insensitive. Too willing to use Newark schools as a hiring hall for inept cronies from New York and New Orleans. But she was right about one thing–and that one thing may turn out to be the most important thing facing Newark’s neighborhood public schools. Her successor, she said, would be worse for Newark’s public schools than she was–and that’s before she even knew who her successor would be. Of course, it turned out to be her old boss and enabler, Christopher Cerf.
She wrote that in an email to the late Joseph Del Grosso, then the president of Newark Teachers Union (NTU). Del Grosso told me Anderson warned him about trying to drive her out of office back in the spring 2014.
“She said she wasn’t the problem–that whoever came after her would be much more eager to expand charter schools and close public schools,” I remember Del Grosso telling me.
Cerf is a nationally known champion of charter schools. In New York, as an aide to Cami Anderson was right | Bob Braun's Ledger: