The Newark School Reform Wars

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http://www.thenation.com/article/180044/newark-school-reform-wars


Former Newark Mayor Cory Booker, left, and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz)

Every time Newark shows up on the national radar—from Cory Booker’s celebrity turn to Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to Ras Baraka’s victory in the mayoral race earlier this month—its schools have been in the spotlight. In Mayor-elect Baraka, the school reform project inaugurated under Booker and Governor Chris Christie has met its most formidable opponent yet. But despite Baraka’s win, not to mention a flurry of sit-ins, walk-outs, protests and pickets, the transformation of the school system into a showcase of neoliberal ideas about education is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

That’s troubling news for students in the district schools, such as those at the Hawthorne Avenue School.

Hawthorne could have been a model for urban education. The Newark, New Jersey, K–8 school has raised its test scores in each of the last three years. The hallways that teachers describe as “chaos” four years ago are now quiet, save occasional bursts of laughter. Its performance on last year’s tests, on which it met all state benchmarks, compelled an assistant superintendent to make a personal visit to congratulate the faculty.

So the community was stunned when the district leveled the educational equivalent of a death sentence on the school.

[AngryAmish]

1. That is a very long article

I did not finish it
But it is like every other education article I have read in my five decades.

After a while they all sound the same. Reformer takes over schools, with intentions good or ill, and changes them. People who get ox gored complain. After a while a lot of money is spent and nothing really changes. Then a new reformer arrives, says previous reformer sucks, then makes new changes.

Rinse, repeat.