The Christie legacy in Newark’s schools–high absenteeism, poor scores, and budget deficits
The state administration of Newark’s public schools, after more than 20 years of controlling the state’s largest school system, last night conceded it had failed to solve chronic student absenteeism—and had produced some of the worst student scores on New Jersey’s statewide tests. Even Christopher Cerf, the former state education commissioner and architect of failed reforms in the state-run system, conceded the district faced “a major crisis” in truancy.
At the same time, he also said the district–already facing budget woes this year–faced a similar shortfall next year.
The revelations came a year after Cerf’s predecessor as state-appointed school superintendent, Cami Anderson, sent the state a report claiming many of Newark’s schools had 100 percent attendance rates. The state’s education department continued to post the obviously false statistics on its own website for a year or more.
Cerf, appointed to both the state commissioner’s job and the Newark post by Gov. Chris Christie, hired Anderson and guided her operation of the district. He left last night’s board meeting before he could be questioned about how absenteeism had gone from a non-existent to a pervasive problem in just a year. It hadn’t, of course, but the manipulation of district statistics by the state administration continues to raise so-far unanswered questions.
The statistics on chronic absenteeism clearly shocked members of the Newark school board—some of whom brought up the decision three years ago by Anderson–backed by Cerf—to lay off attendance counselors who were responsible for tracking down chronic truants.
“We need to know how the elimination of these positions affected absenteeism,’’ said board member Crystal Fonseca. She never got an answer.
Chronic absenteeism—defined as the percentage of students who miss school 10 The Christie legacy in Newark’s schools–high absenteeism, poor scores, and budget deficits | Bob Braun's Ledger: