Newark: The day the dream died, Oct. 19, 2015–Part One
Baraka: What happened to Newark’s radical mayor?
If a history of Newark public education is written, the date of Oct. 19, 2015, will go down as the day the dream died. It will be written up as the day the forces of selfishness and greed, as personified by the clown we in New Jersey call governor, defeated the last best hope of residents of the state’s largest city for a rebirth of a liberating public school system.
From now on, it’s everyone for himself or herself. If there aren’t enough lifeboats for the passengers on the sinking ship known as Newark’s public schools, then, well, the strong and the connected and the opportunistic will survive and those burdened with disabilities and language problems will simply drown. That is, after all, the message of privately-operated, if publicly-funded, charter schools. Hooray for me, the hell with everyone else. Or, as the Brits would say, “I’ve got mine, Jack, screw you all.”
Of all the events of that day (and other events will be detailed in Part 2), the most dramatic were the acts of omission and commission of the city’s mayor, a man who called himself a radical and yet acts very much in the tradition of Newark mayors who know where the power is and are drawn to it, perhaps out of political necessity. Ras Baraka, as I am sure even Ras Baraka knows, would not be mayor of Newark today if he did not position himself as the uncompromising champion of traditional public education over the forces of privatization, including the big-money people who believe privately-run charter schools should be the 21st Century missionaries to the city of Newark–the big money people who tried to quash Baraka’s campaign and elect Shavar Jeffries.
I still remember Baraka’s angry yet somehow reassuring words months ago to small knots of men and women who needed someone to say what they believed. Those small knots grew and grew into an irresistible force powered by hope and Newark: The day the dream died, Oct. 19, 2015–Part One | Bob Braun's Ledger:
