THE BIG FRAUD: Newark students won’t have to meet state performance standards before state relinquishes control
Newark students will not have to meet state standards for academic performance before local control is returned, the Christie-appointed schools superintendent told a school board meeting Tuesday night.
Superintendent Christopher Cerf–who, as state education commissioner in 2013,refused to return state control to the city’s schools because of the district’s failure to meet student performance standards–now says his successor won’t do the same thing. It’s apparently a done deal between Mayor Ras Baraka and Gov. Chris Christie.
Cerf, the superintendent and former commissioner, said at the school board meeting he was confident the Newark school district would pass all standards needed for a return of local autonomy but one, student performance–and, hey no problem, because he and state education Commissioner David Hespe will work that one out.
Hespe and Cerf can work it out through what’s called “an equivalency waiver,” Cerf said. That refers to the discretionary power of the state education commissioner to ignore state regulations in response to an application from a school district. Cerf is going to make that application, he said, and added:
“We have every reason to believe our application will be granted,” Cerf said.
The one standard the district will not meet deals with student scores on statewide tests, attendance figures, and graduation rates–rolled up in one category called “program and instruction.”
Although, in 2013, Cerf–as the state’s education commissioner–cited that category to deny a return to local control, he now believes the standard can be swept aside in an equivalency waiver application. Cerf even dismissed some of these standards as “outmoded” and, therefore, irrelevant to the Newark’s effort to regain local control.
What is tragically ironic about Cerf’s prediction–and he is not stupid enough to THE BIG FRAUD: Newark students won’t have to meet state performance standards before state relinquishes control |: