Newark’s school wars are over: Cerf and Baraka win, the people lose |

Newark’s school wars are over: Cerf and Baraka win, the people lose |:
Newark’s school wars are over: Cerf and Baraka win, the people lose

 Years of  resistance to the state masters of Newark’s schools collapsed last night in a stunning show of the political power of the new alliance between state-appointed superintendent Christopher Cerf and Ras Baraka, the mayor whose election was due almost solely to his opposition to state control and his support from employee unions. The elected school board voted 6-2 to approve Cerf’s giveaway to the city of millions of dollars in school property–a plan endorsed by the mayor.

Board members who, for years, had nothing good to say about Cerf and who, just last week, criticized the property plan, supported Cerf. They included members like Marques Aquil-Lewis, Phil Seelinger,  Crystal Fonseca and board chair Ariagna Perello,  men and women who had demanded Cerf’s resignation more than once.

The vote came late in the meeting and was accompanied by jeers of activists who cried “sell-out” and “conflict” as the board, with its new and ill-fitting political stripes, first beat back an effort to table the transfer of property–and then voted to approve it.

The only two board members to vote against the transfer were Antoinette Baskerville-Richardson and Donald Jackson. Dashay Carter, who had spoken sharply against the plan at an earlier meeting, abstained. She is an employee of the Newark Housing Authority and said she had a “conflict.”

And that’s at the core of this ignominious defeat of what had once been a brave band of board members who resisted the state’s control for years–four of the board members work for City Hall or one of its agencies. As long as Baraka was at odds with Cerf or his predecessor, Cami Anderson, the board was free to vote its Newark’s school wars are over: Cerf and Baraka win, the people lose |: