How struggling families try to help Newark–only to be punished by state school “reform.”
Lela Barrow, 6, kisses her little brother Richard, 3, and helps him with his backpack. Because of “One Newark,” they can’t walk to school together with their grandmother
Richard Barrow is only three, but he is excited about starting school. So excited he often puts on his backpack and parades through the house, telling his father and grandmother and sister he is getting ready to walk up the street to his school. To walk with them to their school. His father’s school. His sister’s school. The school where his grandmother has taught for years. But, now, because of people who live far away and don’t understand this is Richard Barrow’s school–his family’s school–the little boy now must be told he can’t go to that school.
Because it isn’t the Barrow family’s school anymore.
The Barrows illustrate both the hope and despair of living in Newark–of believing in Newark, of staying in Newark. What has happened to them also illustrates the arrogance and indifference of people–people who don’t live in Newark–who say they favor school “reform” and “turnaround.”
“This is my home, this is my community,” says Freda Barrow. “They have taken it away from me and my family. Sometimes, I think I think I should leave–but someone has to stay here and fight.”
Freda Barrow is known to many as the woman brings a camera into the midst of the disruption caused by the insensitive and inept policies of Gov. Chris Christie, a Mendham resident whose family fled Newark in the 1950s. Policies he entrusted first to Cami Anderson of New York and then Christopher Cerf of Montclair, people who have shredded the fabric of life in New Jersey’s largest city because they How struggling families try to help Newark–only to be punished by state school “reform.” | Bob Braun's Ledger:
