Federal intervention in Newark. A victory, yes–but for whom?
PULSE president Sharon Smith addresses press conference outside Newark’s Belmont-Runyon School.
The federal intervention in the state-operated Newark school system is, in fact, a victory both for the parents who sued to obtain it and, ultimately, for the cause of educational equity. But it may not immediately help the children who were hurt by the Christie Administration’s clumsy and misguided efforts at “reform.”
Parents and their lawyers held a press conference to hail the agreement and they used terms like “ground-breaking” and ” break-through” and “important”–and they weren’t wrong. They weren’t wrong because:
1. If the settlement is considered in a national context–and PULSE is part of a network of parent activists–then this represents the first time community organizers have forced the federal government, itself a bastion of reforms like school closing and charter expansion, to admit it may have contributed to practices that actually harmed children. Similar complaints have been filed in behalf of children and parents in New Orleans, Chicago, and Philadelphia–but none have yet been so successful as Newark’s effort.
2. The federal intervention raises a cloud over the entire New Jersey experiment in state takeovers as a means of improving urban school districts–it has taken over Jersey City, Paterson, and Camden as well. Not only has the state failed to markedly improve learning in the state’s largest school districts it runs, it also may have actually harmed children through its efforts. If not, why would the federal government demand remediation?
If nothing else, the parents have given the lie to assertions of competence by both federal and state bureaucrats. The federal intervention in Newark may have forever ended the notion that state and federal governments know best how to fix schools.
But what about the Newark children affected by state-imposed reforms?
“This is an important first step,” said Sharon Smith, president and co-founder of Federal intervention in Newark. A victory, yes–but for whom? | Bob Braun's Ledger:
