Feds to Newark: Identify and help children hurt by Christie administration “reforms.” Now.
PULSE, a grass roots organization, scores a victory for children and parents.
A small but vocal grass roots organization in Newark has won a major, if limited, victory for city school parents and children hurt by the so-called “reforms” imposed by the state under Gov. Chris Christie—including school closings, the “One Newark” enrollment plan, and other practices imposed by the state administration of the city’s schools. The federal government is demanding action to find and help those students.
The state had closed, re-sited, privatized or otherwise changed the operation of 18 public schools in a way that disrupted the schooling of thousands of children in the last three years. The organization, PULSE—for Parents Unified for Local School Education—has persuaded the US Education Department’s civil rights office to force the state-operated school district to 1) identify every student affected by the changes, 2) determine whether child was hurt in any way, and 3) remediate that injury within six months. All of it under federal supervision.
In a prepared statement, Sharon Smith, PULSE’s president and co-founder, called the settlement of her organization’s federal civil rights cases “ an important victory and first step on the road to justice for students and families in Newark Public Schools. It is the clear result of the hard work of parents, students and community members who refused to give up.”
The settlement, technically between Newark’s state-operated school system and the US Department of Education, does have its limits. It does not reverse the school closures or end the so-called “One Newark” enrollment plan. That had been a demand from PULSE and other organizations and political leaders, including Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and the city’s elected school board.
But it does commit the state operated system to determine whether children had been hurt by the plans and to provide what remediation might be necessary—all of its Feds to Newark: Identify and help children hurt by Christie administration “reforms.” Now. | Bob Braun's Ledger:
