tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86187099293183974242024-03-05T01:43:02.468-05:00NJ Left BehindThoughts and analysis about the state of New Jersey public education.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.comBlogger3498125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-9167150443046782032017-05-10T09:53:00.000-04:002017-05-10T09:53:55.198-04:00Do Charter Parents Have A "Weak and Confused Understanding of Public Institutions"? A Response to David Leonhardt's Responders<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week David Leonhardt wrote</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/opinion/school-vouchers-charters-betsy-devos.html?_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> an editorial in the New York Times</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that looks at two types of school choice, public charter schools and voucher programs, that, he says, are often conflated into a “misleading caricature.” Several days after his column ran, the Times published seven </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/opinion/sunday/how-successful-are-charter-schools.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Letters to the Editor</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that mostly succumb to the very caricature that Leonhardt warns against.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While Leonhardt indulges in a few over-generalizations himself, it’s worth picking apart several of these familiar arguments against alternatives to traditional public schools. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First let’s look at what Leonhardt gets wrong. He writes that “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">many charter-school systems are subject to rigorous </span><a href="https://seii.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Explaining-Charter-School-Effectiveness.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">evaluation and oversight</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” and, while that’s true in many states -- New Jersey, for example, closed four charter schools in March for poor performance -- some states are far more laissez faire, like Betsy DeVos’ Michigan. Leonhardt denies that any charter “creams off” top students with motivated parents but some do, just as traditional high-performing schools in wealthy towns cream off students whose parents can afford to buy houses that come bundled with top-notch districts and magnet schools that only take the high-performers. He also says that “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">local officials decide which charters can open and expand” but, again, that depends on each state’s particular charter law and regulations. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Leonhardt’s lapses are nothing compared to the fallacies his column provoked, which include distortions about school funding, the mythical dichotomy between public and private, and the ability of poor parents to discern fact from fiction and successfully advocate for their children. Most important, they ignore his key point: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b> “education isn’t just another issue. It is the most powerful force for accelerating economic growth, reducing poverty and lifting middle-class living standards.”</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the alternative facts weaved throughout the comments section ignore this basic truth. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now to the letters. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One theme that recurs is that charter schools “divert” money from traditional schools in order to cover tuition costs. After all, this familiar argument goes, the money is supposed to follow the child and if that child goes to a charter school than the local district loses a funding stream. It’s a zero sum game, right? As Lee Beasley writes, “The money that allows charters their vaunted flexibility is squeezed out of already strapped traditional public schools.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only if you pit traditional schools against other public alternatives like charter schools. A public school is a public school, with the difference that charters receive more autonomy in exchange for more accountability. We hear no backlash against parents who can afford to move to better school districts (which is how most families exercise school choice) or send their kids to private school. We hear no backlash against parents of children with disabilities who use the IEP process to place their children in private schools at district expense. We only hear backlash against parents who prioritize their child’s education over fiscal well-being of traditional institutions and send their kids to higher-performing charters. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the responders to Leonhardt's column is Leonie Haimson, who writes that “traditional public schools are increasingly concentrated with the highest need students with fewer resources to educate them.” According to her logic, we should relegate poor families, many of color, into schools with decades behind them of inadequate instruction. Haimson, by the way, is co-founder of two anti-choice/accountability groups, Parents Across America and Diane Ravitch’s Network for Public Education.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What is disturbing to me is that [Haimson] chose the best option for her child, but she does not support my right to make the same choice,” said</span><a href="http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2013/04/03/leonie-haimson-exits-public-school-parenting-but-not-advocacy/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Joe Herrera,</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> whose three children attend Coney Island Preparatory Charter School.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I invite Ms. Haimson to take a ride with me to Camden or Newark and visit charter schools there that indeed embrace “the highest-needs students.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now we arrive at another tired meme: that public charter schools are not really “public.” David Adams writes, “Calling a charter school a public school is like calling a defense contractor a public institution because it consumes public funds.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Okay. Let’s go with that. But only if you’re willing to buy into false dichotomies and ignore reality. “Public institutions” rely on private sectors all the time. Where do schools get their food, computers, textbooks, desks, furnaces, buses? From private companies, of course. Is NASA a private company because it buys its rockets from Spacex and its trucks from Ford? Is the Center for Disease Control a private company because it buys vaccines made by Merck? Can you think of a single government-sponsored enterprise that doesn’t do business with non-public entities? </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then we come to the most offensive theme channelled by Mr. Adams: “Charter operators benefit from a populace that has a weak and confused understanding of public institutions and the public good.” Really? Parents who send their kids to charter schools are weak and confused? Ignorant of public institutions? Uninterested in the “public good”? His prejudice echoes Save Our Schools-NJ’s Julia Sass Rubin who told the </span><a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/10/n_j_charter_schools_see_smaller_percentages_of_poor_and_special_needs_students_than_districts_study.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Star-Ledger </span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“people in abject poverty don’t have the bandwidth to even evaluate charter schools</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adams -- as well as Haimson and Rubin -- need to get out more and speak to charter school parents who are astute, knowledgeable, and wholeheartedly invested in their children’s educational achievement. Road trip!</span></div>
<br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-20028993147050062322017-05-03T15:00:00.001-04:002017-05-03T15:10:58.408-04:00 A Picture of Trenton Public Schools. Or, Is This Good Enough for Your Kid?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8uCDZwIc1uux7xNTHCzxump2c0OyLGUn8DJVKV4Bz8dqZ1ao9AtLW5gKQu-qceYuPReBiS05B4zdrDhIAw-4qgsFvJhZjqIBmkLUCL-8Qz0xWWeATf88SWJANQ9lKZmdtUnPUHpJJVtaF/s1600/imagesPT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8uCDZwIc1uux7xNTHCzxump2c0OyLGUn8DJVKV4Bz8dqZ1ao9AtLW5gKQu-qceYuPReBiS05B4zdrDhIAw-4qgsFvJhZjqIBmkLUCL-8Qz0xWWeATf88SWJANQ9lKZmdtUnPUHpJJVtaF/s400/imagesPT.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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This is a picture of a young boy receiving physical therapy in an appropriate room in his school..<br />
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Now click on <a href="http://www.trentonian.com/general-news/20170502/physical-therapy-of-trenton-special-needs-student-conducted-in-schools-foyer-pic-shows">this link</a> and look at the picture at the top of this Trentonian article (which I couldn't reproduce on this blog). That's a picture of a young boy (identifying characteristics are redacted because the paper didn't have permission from the child's parents) receiving physical therapy in an inappropriate venue.<br />
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Specifically, the crowded front foyer of Trenton's Grant Elementary School.<br />
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According to Nicole Whitfield, a special education advocate who happened to be visiting the school,<br />
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“There was passing traffic from the outside and constant traffic from the other students in the hallway,” Whitfield said. “This was an invasion of the student’s privacy and a constant distraction.” </blockquote>
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The advocate said the physical therapy activity also violated the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP), a legal plan schools must abide by to meet the needs of a special education student. Whitfield said all of the IEPs state therapy sessions must be conducted in a “therapy room.” The physical therapist was also not a district employee.</blockquote>
It's unclear whether or not the Grant Elementary indeed violated the child's IEP. It's possible that the therapist was incorporating multi-sensory stimulation into the activity (okay, I'm stretching here) and the therapist wasn't a "district employee" because Trenton, in an effort to cut costs, has out-sourced speech, occupational, and physical therapists.<br />
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Yet the sighting of inappropriate delivery of services is consistent with Trenton Public Schools' history of short-changing kids with disabilities. As I've<a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2016/03/trentons-special-education-secret-and.html"> noted elsewhere,</a> Trenton parents of special needs children have smartly responded to the district's special education disarray by demanding out-of-district placements. According to last year's DOE data, the district sends two-thirds of their special education students -- or 900 students -- to private schools or the County Special Services district. That's a violation of federal education law's mandate of educating children in the "least restrictive environment," but until Trenton ups their game parents will continue to demand -- as any parent would -- effective services.<br />
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Some would say that this is the least of Trenton's problems. The School Board hired a new superintendent earlier this month (<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Fred McDowell, an administrator from Philadelphia) but the search was marred by violations of the Open Public Meeting Act and a <a href="http://www.trentonian.com/article/TT/20170403/NEWS/170409943">civil rights complaint</a> from the NAACP. Budget deficits forced the School Board to lay off ten percent of staff members. At Trenton Central High, <a href="https://rc.doe.state.nj.us/report.aspx?County=21&District=5210&School=050&SchoolYear=2015-2016&SY=1516">no student </a>(or so few that the DOE chose to omit the information) reached college/career readiness benchmarks on the SAT or ACT. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14px;">And yet how we treat our most vulnerable students is a kind of emblem for district functionality, right? Under this metric, Trenton Public Schools is failing not only the child in the Trentonian picture but 13,000 others.</span><br />
<br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-63195194183751827142017-05-03T09:54:00.000-04:002017-05-03T09:54:31.730-04:00 Troy Singleton and Cory Booker Are New Jersey's "Charter Champions"The <a href="http://www.publiccharters.org/">National Alliance for Public Charter Schools</a> just released a list of this year’s “Charter Champions,” nineteen legislators across the country who exemplify the values espoused by those who recognize that our traditional education system inadequately serves all children. Of those nineteen legislators, two hail from New Jersey, State Assemblyman Troy Singleton (D-Burlington) and U.S. Senator Cory Booker, former mayor of Newark.<br />
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If you’re a fan of improving access to quality public schools for children of color and children from impoverished homes, then you’re a fan of Assemblyman Singleton and Senator Booker. Their respective legislative efforts have accomplished more for schoolchildren in Camden and Newark (N.J.’s most educationally-troubled cities) than any progressive school funding formula or traditional intervention can provide.<br />
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”I believe that students should be given the opportunity to academically succeed in whatever vehicle ensures that success,” said Assemblyman Singleton. “Simply relying on just one manner in which we deliver education in our country does a disservice to our future generations. An all of the above strategy focused on student success and less on the vehicle that delivers upon that success will keep our children moving forward and achieving more.”<br />
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One of those other vehicles, of course, is public charter schools. In New Jersey, Singleton, who serves as Vice Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, is probably most well-known for adding seats to an innovative legislative vehicle specifically for Camden, which in 2013 earned the ignominious title of “Most Dangerous City in America” (This year its ranking improved to fourth.) Camden’s traditional education system has a long history of similar notoriety. From a <a href="http://www.camden.k12.nj.us/ourpages/auto/2012/8/22/56433493/CAmden%20Strategic%20Plan%20Final.pdf">2012 report</a> commissioned by the city School Board:<br />
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Despite spending more per pupil than almost any district in the country, Camden schools have failed to serve their students effectively for years. This is not the fault of any individual or group: There are many passionate, hard-working teachers and administrators throughout Camden. But they have been working in a broken system that has lacked effective leadership for too long.</blockquote>
Troy Singleton almost single-handedly created respite for Camden families by persuading legislators in both the Assembly and the Senate to <a href="http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2014/Bills/A3500/3459_S1.PDF">extend by one year </a> a law called the <a href="http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/09/29/explainer-getting-inside-the-urban-hope-act-and-renaissance-schools/">Urban Hope Act</a>. This original law permitted a time-limited authorization of new hybrid charter-district schools in Newark, Trenton, and Camden. Only Camden availed itself of this opportunity to create “renaissance schools” operated by top-performing charter groups Mastery, KIPP, and Uncommon but needed an extra year, which Singleton's law provided. Currently thirty-four percent of Camden students attend schools in the charter sector, about 5,000 in “regular” charters and another 2,700 in renaissance schools authorized through the Urban Hope Act.The renaissance schools are, open to all children in their catchment areas. Parents enroll through a universal enrollment system created by state-appointed Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard.<br />
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“Assemblyman Troy Singleton is not a supporter of charter public schools,” said NAPCS director Ron Rice, Jr. “He is an outspoken supporter of quality schools for all children and he does not differentiate between public delivery systems. I have known and worked with Troy on many issues and his bottom line has always been what works best for the families and constituents he represents. Assemblyman Singleton deserves this award because he is a champion for people and for the principle that a great education can be one’s passport to the future.”<br />
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Some Americans are only recently familiar with Senator Cory Booker. We New Jerseyans, especially those of us who either live or spend much time in Newark, have long regarded him as a champion of poor urban schoolchildren (and are accustomed to his habit of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/nyregion/newark-mayor-cory-booker-saves-woman-from-house-fire.html">rescuing people from burning buildings</a> and then tweeting about it to three million followers). He is fiercely committed to equitable access to quality schools, regardless of type of governance. As Mayor of Newark, he made the expansion of public charters a top priority, facilitating a $100 million grant from Facebook (which, by the way, represents only one-tenth of Newark’s annual school budget) and laying the foundation for a vastly transformed school district.<br />
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Senator Booker is no Johnny-come-lately to the urgency of school options. Almost ten years ago, while Newark families were desperate for scant educational opportunities, <a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2009/06/cory-booker-on-charter-schools.html">he said,</a> “for too long we've looked at charter schools and traditional public schools as separate...But [they are] part of the same system ...there is not one path but a need for an interwoven set of strategies.”<br />
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When Booker left for D.C., some worried that school improvements would regress. <a href="http://www.trentonian.com/article/20130616/NEWS/130619721/could-big-money-leave-newark-with-mayor-booker-?utm_source=feedly#full_story">Rick Hess</a> of the American Enterprise Institute, for example, told the Associated Press, “If Booker goes to the Senate, then suddenly Newark is another high spending, low-performing struggling community.”<br />
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But Hess was wrong. Booker’s reforms <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-assessing-22-years-of-state-control-as-newark-votes-for-the-board-to-take-back-reins-of-city-schools">have been sustained.</a> Currently thirty-one percent of Newark children attend public charter schools and student outcomes are up across the traditional and charter sectors. In fact, a recent study conducted by the <a href="http://www.crpe.org/sites/default/files/measuringup_10.2015_0.pdf">Center for Reinventing Public Education</a> shows that among 50 cities studied, only eight percent of public schools “beat the odds” but in Newark that percentage soared to forty percent, solely due to the educational advantages afforded to charter school students.<br />
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“Senator Cory Booker is nothing short of courageous when it comes to fighting for educational options for communities that have, historically, had the least amount of quality options in their daily lives,” Ron Rice of NAPCS told me. “ Many politicians talk about making catalytic change in education and Senator Booker has been one of the few public servants to actually fight for and bring change. He is a charter champion because he does not accept mediocrity in himself and his service and he has stood up against forces that would allow mediocrity to exist in the education systems created for our children.”<br />
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Imagine this: ten percent of this year’s NAPCS Charter Champions hail from the Garden State. Not too shabby for the bridge and tunnel crowd. And especially propitious for families in Camden and Newark.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-84442433438233073322017-04-27T18:06:00.000-04:002017-04-27T18:06:22.343-04:00John the Ringworm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkgWMthX2Zi1Tinjd84lwepkROV1o0xKAgKMFdpd-ezlCZp3SP-W7r0kniHghrM5IbuqFsKLKUrK9NcL8ETpkckZRMv5icz63CB4gqMszwwAwmeq6nhje6A7vOpa85fWPsT5gP-Z38NVY/s1600/33118279744_2e42d0e8f0_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkgWMthX2Zi1Tinjd84lwepkROV1o0xKAgKMFdpd-ezlCZp3SP-W7r0kniHghrM5IbuqFsKLKUrK9NcL8ETpkckZRMv5icz63CB4gqMszwwAwmeq6nhje6A7vOpa85fWPsT5gP-Z38NVY/s320/33118279744_2e42d0e8f0_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“We are hopeful that the winners are ready to get to work to put Newark back in local control,” Abeigon said. “We also want to make sure that resources come back to traditional schools. Corporate charter schools, we view them as parasitic. I don’t see any compromise coming from their sector at all so I don’t see why the city feels that they can compromise with these people.”</blockquote>
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That’s John Abeigon, president of the Newark Teachers Union, comparing the public schools that educate one out of every three Newark students to organisms that survive by ingesting their hosts. Abeigon also tells <a href="http://observer.com/2017/04/newark-school-board-election-nj-unity-slate/">The Advocate</a> that NTU members “do not agree that working with charter school advocates is in the best interest of Newark students” and that he hopes that “the newly elected members of the school board move toward a moratorium on charter schools.”<br />
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There are three types of public schools in Newark, all accessible to families through the <a href="http://newarkenrolls.org/">Newark Enrolls</a> program. Traditional district schools educate about 33% of Newark schoolchildren. District magnet schools, which restrict admissions to schoolchildren who meet their academic criteria, serve about 36% of Newark schoolchildren. Charter schools educate about 31% of Newark schoolchildren (although shares will shift as charter schools expand in response to parent demand).<br />
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Mr. Abeigon suggests that two-thirds of this diverse system turn on the smallest third. Who’s the antagonist in this picture?<br />
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NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-13973676311485321472017-04-26T08:58:00.002-04:002017-04-26T17:52:16.109-04:00Newark's School Board Elections Results Signal But a Superficial UnityNewark’s School Board elections are over and the this newly-configured nine-member School Board -- for twenty-two years demoted to "advisory" but now just a baby step away from full control of New Jersey’s largest and most politically-convoluted school district -- will include Josephine C. Garcia, Reginald Bledsoe, and Flohisha Johnson. These three winners ran together on the “Unity Slate,” a joint venture initiated last year by a new and well-funded organization called the Parent Coalition for Excellent Education (<a href="http://www.pc2e.org/">PC2E</a>).<br />
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Last year PC2E also funded a three-person Unity Slate that swept the election. Up-ending the usual practice of top power brokers running competing slates, 2016 signaled a rare melding of minds in this fragmented city. With coaxing from PC2E, Mayor Ras Baraka chose a candidate, North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos chose a candidate, and pro-reform PC2E chose a candidate. That year each member of the Unity Slate garnered about 6,000 votes, a huge increase in these typically low-participation elections. Much of that increased turnout was attributed to charter school parents, who voted at twice the level as previous years and supported the two pro-reform candidates Kim Gaddy (PC2E’s choice) and Tave Padilla (North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos’ choice). Mayor Ras Baraka chose Leah Owens, an old-school Diane Ravitch clone who won because when the Mayor speaks people listen.<br />
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But this year turnout was low (the rainy weather didn't help) and the unity extolled during last's race was fractured by candidates more attuned to pro-choice parents' politics. The ostensible reform candidate, Flo Johnson, got only 2,703 votes, less than half of what Kim Gaddy got last year.<br />
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It is premature to draw conclusions from a mere two years of data. But there is fear among education reformers, primarily parents who choose charter schools for their children, that last year was an anomaly and nothing has changed. There are few cities where the Mayor and his fellows-in-arms wield such power, but Newark is one of them, ruled by Ward leaders who control jobs, construction, political and apolitical appointments, and, yes, public education.<br />
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Tacitus, the esteemed historian in the early days of the Roman Empire, said that “success has many fathers but failure is an orphan.” But in subversive Newark, <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-assessing-22-years-of-state-control-as-newark-votes-for-the-board-to-take-back-reins-of-city-schools">a century of failing schoolchildren has many fathers,</a> among them this culture of subjugation, patronage, and nepotism.<br />
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There are good people of substance and vision on the Newark School Board but the concerns of groups like the<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/handsoffourfuture/"> Hands off Our Future Collective</a> are valid. The public education available to Newark schoolchildren has improved dramatically over the last decade and this improvement is due in no small measure to the increasingly large footprint of a flourishing and high-quality charter school sector. If too many Board members -- now or three years from now -- are beholden to the Mayor or his successor, then that improvement could slow. Already too many of Newark’s students attend schools that fail to deliver the “thorough and efficient” education promised in the State Constitution. And, after all, it was Mayor Baraka who told a closed Council meeting (youtube video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tthMXDpOmbI&feature=youtu.be">here)</a>, in an image that could have been lifted from the old film serial “Perils of Pauline,” that students who attend the traditional district schools are like a damsel “tied onto a train track” and the train bearing down on that person is the city’s charter school sector.<br />
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Not exactly a vision of unity.<br />
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An article today in the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-new-jersey-politics-county-party-support-is-essential-1493161171">Wall Street Journal</a> discusses the power of county bosses within the context of N.J.’s likely next governor Phil Murphy, who neatly secured the “backing of all 21 county Democratic organizations, because county parties are the core of political power in New Jersey for both Democrats and Republicans,” Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook County Report, commented,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Boss-run politics, that’s exactly what it is. Once these organizations have their say, historically, it’s kind of a done deal.</blockquote>
Hopes among pro-choice parents to the contrary, Newark's school board election was kind of a done deal.<br />
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Those who cheer on Newark’s educational improvements, especially a new generation of empowered parents after a century of neglect and malaise, were heartened by last year’s results. This year, probably not so much, especially as many defected to candidate Charles Love who, coincidentally, used to work for PC2E. Word on the street was that he was proffered as the PC2E candidate but Mayor Baraka vetoed him because Love was inadequately deferential.<br />
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What does all this mean for Newark? What does it mean when elected officials owe their office to powerful patrons? What does it mean for the future of PC2E when the Unity Slate was won not by newly-empowered parents but by the heft of Boss Baraka? Most importantly, what does this mean for Newark’s public schoolchildren, who are almost evenly divided among magnet schools (the one type of public school that truly "creams" students through selective admissions), charter schools, and traditional schools?<br />
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Soon this new School Board will start the process of choosing a new superintendent to replace state-appointed Chris Cerf. New Jersey School Boards Association instructs boards that their most important responsibility is that choice, an especially hard slog in New Jersey where superintendents flit like hummingbirds from district to district and where educational leadership of Newark is not perceived as nectar.<br />
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The Unity Slate was supposed to be one -- okay, two -- rungs of the stepladder towards district unity. The top step is a Unity Board supported by a Unity electorate. That outcome is not yet a done deal.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-62682351410780474962017-04-20T14:21:00.001-04:002017-04-20T14:21:44.465-04:00It's Time For a State Takeover in Lakewood and Here's WhyAnyone who has been following the Lakewood School Board’s antics over the last decade can only sigh at the most recent news: the founder of a Jewish special education yeshiva that masquerades as a nonsectarian special education school was recently indicted for stealing public funds and laundering them in a scheme to enrich himself and a fundraising arm of the school.<br />
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The school is called SCHI, or <a href="https://www.schischool.org/">School for Children with HIdden Intelligence</a>. (Ignore the faces of color you see on the site; that's part of the charade.) The founder and current director is Rabbi Osher Eisemann. According to the <a href="http://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/education/2017/04/19/special-needs-school-overcharged-struggling-lakewood-district/100648640/">Asbury Park Press</a>, he has been charged with:<br />
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Theft by unlawful taking; misapplication of government property; misconduct by a corporate official; and money laundering — all second-degree offenses that carry up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $150,000, state Attorney General Christopher Porrino said in a statement.</blockquote>
Eisemann’s method was simple: he overcharged Lakewood Public Schools by about a million dollars by paying for uncertified teachers, overpaying administrators, and proffering receipts for items that don’t seem to exist (ex: an expensive generator for SCHI’s summer camp that no one could find). Then he gave the money to the school’ s fundraising foundation, the non-profit Services for Hidden Intelligence, LLC, and used the money for purchases unrelated to SCHI.<br />
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This <i>shande far di kinde</i> (Yiddish for “scandal for the children”) barely qualifies as the tip of the <a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2010/11/leave-your-foreskins-at-door.html">um, iceberg</a> regarding the school’s illicit behavior.<br />
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Lakewood is complicated: the public district’s 5,000 students are Latino, Black, and largely poor. Student outcomes are<a href="https://rc.doe.state.nj.us/runreport.aspx?county=29&district=2520&school=050&year=2015-2016"> grim</a>. This is largely due to the lack of funds available to public school students because the district spends over $18 million of its <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/finance/fp/ufb/2016/reports/29/2520/UFB17_2520.pdf">$128 million operating budget </a>to bus 25,000 kids to over 100 Jewish day schools (the transportation is managed by an unaccountable consortium) and another $22 million to SCHI for providing what is supposed to be a secular education to 200 Jewish special needs children. (Contrary to statements by the omnipresent legal eagle <a href="http://www.thelakewoodscoop.com/news/2017/04/attorney-michael-inzelbuch-some-facts-about-schi.html">Michael Inzelbuch</a>, “<a href="http://www.app.com/story/news/local/jackson-lakewood/lakewood/2016/06/30/lakewood-raid-orthodox-yeshivas/86548970/">most if not all of [SCHI’s students] are Orthodox.”</a>) That leaves only $13,236 per pupil for public school non-Jewish students, well below what N.J. considers “adequacy.”<br />
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In a<a href="http://www.thelakewoodscoop.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017-2018-Budget-Letter-to-County-Super.pdf"> letter last month</a> to the community, Lakewood Superintendent Laura Winters wrote,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is with great sadness that I must inform you that the Lakewood School District is unable to provide its students with a “thorough and efficient” education required by the New Jersey State Constitution. The level of education that will be offered to the students of the Lakewood School District in the 2017-2018 school year, is in my professional opinion, tragically inadequate and inferior compared to the education offered to those students in wealthier towns in Ocean County and across the state.</blockquote>
SCHI's<a href="http://www.app.com/story/news/local/jackson-lakewood/lakewood/2016/06/30/lakewood-raid-orthodox-yeshivas/86548970/"> “palatial” </a>grounds were raided by the FBI last June for exploiting the federal E-rate program. Last April Lakewood U.N.I.T.E., which represents Black students, filed a civil rights complaint against the school district for "disparate treatment of minority students" in special-education placements.<br />
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Annual tuition at SCHI is listed as $97,000 per student, but usually approaches about $125,000 to cover extra services.<br />
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But the school board is controlled by Orthodox Jews and so is the town. The State DOE sent in a fiscal monitor, MIchael Azzara, several years ago and he regularly overrules the Board. But there are limits on what he can do.<br />
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This disparate treatment is old news. SCHI’s duplicity is old news. Lakewood School Board’s disregard for Black and Latino students is old news. It’s time for something new. How about a state takeover?NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-5954757740731907052017-04-14T10:25:00.002-04:002017-04-14T10:25:38.387-04:00All Signs Point To The Waning of the Opt-Out Movement: Just Look at PrincetonPrinceton Regional Public Schools is the bellwether of the opt-out movement in New Jersey. The wealthy and mostly White district is the birthplace of Save Our Schools-NJ which, with assistance from NJEA, is a primary lobbyist against accountability. (SOS-NJ's other bailiwick is opposing school choice -- easy to doif you have access to districts like Princeton, which <a href="http://www.nj.gov/cgi-bin/education/csg/16/csg.pl">spends $24,634 per student</a> per year.)<br />
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Two years ago 340 Princeton High School juniors opted out of the language arts PARCC test, Fewer than 10 percent participated.<br />
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This year, however, 66 percent of juniors, 36.8 percent of sophomores and 96.4 percent of freshmen took PARCC.<br />
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From <a href="http://www.centraljersey.com/news/parcc-test-participation-rate-up-at-princeton-high-school/article_5b65c67c-2075-11e7-af9f-6bf427ee110d.html">Central Jersey</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said Monday that participation rates last week were up "considerably over our first couple of years of PARCC testing, particularly at the ninth-grade level, where now it becomes a graduation requirement."</blockquote>
No doubt SOS-NJ, NJEA, and Education Law Center -- the anti-accountability troika of N.J. -- will continue to argue that PARCC should not be a graduation requirement because, unlike our old ASK and HSPA tests, these new tests are aligned with N.J.’s school content standards and too many students fail to meet proficiency benchmarks in language arts and math. Even in lofty Princeton,<a href="https://rc.doe.state.nj.us/report.aspx?County=21&District=4255&School=085&SchoolYear=2015-2016&SY=1516"> last year 20 percent of eighth-graders</a> didn’t meet the cut in language arts and 28 percent didn’t make the cut in math.<br />
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There are good arguments for multiple pathways to graduation. (N.J. will maintain portfolio options as well as alternative testing for kids with disabilities). Only one other state, New Mexico, includes a test as a graduation requirement. However, undermining the ability of the State to measure proficiency rates and unveil weaknesses of public schools just hurts kids and families who seek clear-eyed data on school quality.<br />
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Opt-out fever has subsided. Put away the Tylenol. Instead, let's agree that all of us -- especially those of us who can't buy their way into districts like Princeton -- need clear information about student outcomes. Regardless of whether proficiency in math and language arts should be a requirement for a high school diploma, we're all better served by shedding pretense, confronting real-life student readiness for life after high school, and collaborating on ways to truly save our schools.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-25233090762339192142017-04-12T12:22:00.000-04:002017-04-12T13:35:55.120-04:00Disunity in Newark As Voters Prepare to Select School Board Members<br />
In less than two weeks Newark voters will elect three new members of their Board of Education and the stakes have never been higher. After twenty-two years of state control, city representatives will once again oversee every aspect of New Jersey’s largest and most politically-convoluted school district. As if this set of circumstances weren’t challenging enough, the education community’s spanking-new solidarity is in danger of fracture.<br />
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For many decades Newark board members have been beholden to powerful politicos -- the Mayor and Ward leaders --- who typically endorse slates of three candidates. For example, in both 2014 and 2015 Mayor Ras Baraka, who won his own election by warping his campaign into a referendum on then-Superintendent Cami Anderson, ran a slate called “Children First.” But last year a new powerhouse rode into town, a pro-charter organization called <a href="http://www.pc2e.org/">PC2E,</a> which magically finagled a “Unity Slate” -- one candidate chosen by Mayor Ras Baraka, one chosen by charter advocates, and one chosen by Councilman Anibal Ramos of the North Ward.<br />
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PC2E’s 2016 strategy was to buy time in order to avoid a political war with Mayor Baraka, who<a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2016/01/newark-mayor-appears-before-city.html"> favors a charter school moratorium</a> and called the parent-hailed expansion of KIPP and Uncommon “<a href="http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2015/10/baraka_calls_potential_expansion_of_newark_charter.html">highly irresponsible.</a>” The slate was comprised of Kim Gaddy, (PC2E’s choice), Tave Padilla (Councilman Ramos’ choice), and Leah Owens, a decidedly anti-choice candidate chosen by Baraka who is one of the founders of the Newark Education Workers Caucus, the militant arm of the Newark Teachers Union, and works for New Jersey Communities United, which opposes school choice.<br />
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The Unity Slate swept the election.<br />
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In fact, this strategy did seem to produce unity, a sharp contrast with the typical divisiveness of Newark elections. PC2E’s success last year also seemed to signify a new acceptance by Mayor Baraka and the Newark Teachers Union that public charter schools, which currently educate thirty-one percent of Newark schoolchildren, are permanent fixtures in the city’s educational landscape.<br />
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But this year was supposed to be different. PC2E (as it told its funders) planned to run a slate of three pro-choice candidates in order to secure a majority on the nine-member Board which will need to find consensus on the mighty challenges confronting the district. These include choosing a new superintendent to replace state-appointed Chris Cerf, managing the district’s fiscal distress (last year’s budget included a $72 million deficit), dealing with unpopular albeit necessary school closures as student enrollment continues to drop due to parental preference for independently-operated public charter schools, and addressing unacceptably low student achievement in parts of the traditional sector. (Example: at <a href="https://rc.doe.state.nj.us/report.aspx?County=13&District=3570&School=070&SchoolYear=2015-2016&SY=1516">Weequahic High School</a> two percent of students achieved college readiness scores in math on last year’s ACT test.)<br />
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However, while there is, once again, a (very) well-funded 2017 Unity Slate, the acceptance by political leaders of Newark’s changing educational landscape appears to have been ephemeral. According to inside sources who wish to remain anonymous, PC2E produced a menu of four prospective pro-reform candidates to Baraka: Oscar James, Charles Love, Rashon Hasan, and Randolph Higgins. All are eminently qualified. Oscar James is Director of Operations for PC2E with a political science degree from Villanova and a former South Ward Councilman. Charles Love works with a nonprofit organization that serves at-risk teens in Essex, Passaic and Hudson counties and is studying for his doctorate in Organizational Behavior. Rashon Hasan is the first college graduate in his family (he also has an MBA) and formerly served on the Newark Board of Education.<br />
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But Baraka vetoed all four because they were not adequately deferential So much for unity. So much for PC2E running an all-pro-reform slate. So much for PC2E’s <i>raison d’etre.</i><br />
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And then Charles Love, a fourth-generation Newarker who used to be the Family Engagement Coordinator for PC2E, decided to run as an independent. His motto is, appropriately, “it’s time to take back power from politicians and give it back to the people.”<br />
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Last week Central Ward Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield Jenkins announced she wasn’t backing the Unity Slate as she did last year but instead was endorsing Charles Love. (She also endorsed another candidate, former Newark Public Schools Acting Superintendent Deborah Terrell.) Love has also received official endorsements from former Newark board president Leonard Anton Wheeler, New Jersey State Democratic Committee Chair Chris James, and South Ward Senior District Leader Hope Jackson. LaVar Young, head of the New Jersey Black Alliance for Educational Options, endorsed last year’s Unity Slate but declined to do so this year because <a href="https://www.tapinto.net/towns/newark/articles/newark-school-board-race-heats-up-with-competing">he doesn’t “think the candidates had enough experience to run a $1 billion school system.”</a> (Two of the three members of the Unity Slate didn’t get past high school.)<br />
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Another force in Newark education politics is the grassroots parent group called Hands Off Our Future Collective. It has made no official endorsements. However, on i<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/handsoffourfuture/">ts Facebook page</a> there is this exchange:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Voters should vote as the mayor has indicated ...like they voted for the Mayor...#GoBaraka #MayorBaraka #RasBaraka<br />
#FollowTheLeader "</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“That's the damn problem, you guys wants puppets. Did you just say VOTERS should VOTE as the Mayor as indicated? I have a question: who the hell is the Mayor to tell VOTERS how to VOTE?”</blockquote>
That, indeed, is the question that will confront voters at the polls on April 25th as they select three new Board of Education members. PC2E’s future may ride in the balance.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-20961773317594700542017-04-07T15:15:00.000-04:002017-04-10T10:35:25.323-04:00KIPP NJ Students Teach Us How To "Be The Change"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last Wednesday <a href="http://kippnj.org/">KIPP New Jersey</a> hosted the 10th annual “Be the Change” celebration, its primary fundraising initiative. By the end of the evening KIPP NJ, which manages the much sought-after public charter school group with facilities in Newark and Camden, had raised over $1.8 million, all of which will be directly funneled into classrooms. Luminaries included Shavar Jeffries, president of Democrats for Education Reform; Richard Barth, CEO of the KIPP Foundation,; Ays Necioglu, Vice President of SEO Scholars; and Dr. Daniel Porterfield; President of Franklin & Marshall College,<br />
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In addition, “Be the Change” inaugurated its first panel discussion, which this year focused on the “degree gap” -- the disparity between the percentages of students of color and white students who earn college degrees. Panelists considered initiatives to improve college access and inculcate persistence and “grit" in order to allay impediments to degree completion.<br />
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Here’s Ryan Hill, KIPP New Jersey founder and CEO:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This event, and our overall mission here at KIPP New Jersey, is all about making a difference. Since day one when we opened the doors to our first school here in Newark’s South Ward, it’s been our kids who have been our source of inspiration. Once each year, we come together to celebrate their accomplishments as well as recognize the efforts of our schools’ amazing supporters. It’s incredible to see the diverse range of individuals, families and organizations that stand behind our kids, each of which play an important role in their future. We’re incredibly grateful for their support as each day, we get one step closer our nation knowing Newark and Camden, New Jersey, as cities of world-class public education.</blockquote>
KIPP currently serves 3,700 students in Newark and 850 in Camden. Last year the NJ DOE approved KIPP’s proposal to expand in Newark. Once all of the approved expansions in Newark are completed (Uncommon Schools is expanding as well) , an additional 8.500 seats will be available to families seeking alternative public schools -- not nearly enough to satisfy demand but a step forward.<br />
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Predictably, Education Law Center, which once represented poor urban children of color but now appears to serve as the legal arm of NJEA, has<a href="http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2017/03/group_fights_expansion_of_7_newark_charter_schools.html"> filed a complaint </a>with the DOE. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called the expansion approvals a "h<a href="http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2016/03/baraka_calls_christies_charter_expansion_ok_a_huge.html">uge step backwards</a>." NJEA has demanded a <a href="https://www.njea.org/njea-moratorium-on-charter-approval-expansion-necessary-until-funding-and-accountability-issues-are-resolved/">moratorium </a>on all charter approvals and expansions. These special interest groups don't want to <b>be </b>the change. They want to <b>stop</b> the change.<br />
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However, Haneef Auguste, a KIPP parent, spoke truth to power in<a href="http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/17/03/09/op-ed-freedom-of-school-choice-is-a-chance-at-the-american-dream/"> NJ Spotlight</a> last month:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I intentionally chose the KIPP New Jersey schools for my family (one boy and three girls), because we were desperate to find an alternative to Newark Public Schools that my family could afford. I’m not sure if these parents that oppose choice understand firsthand, as I do, what it feels like to know you would give your life to ensure your child has a bright future and a shot at the rapidly shrinking window into the American dream...</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I, for one, will not flush my child’s future down the drain because of people philosophically opposed to my choice. What for them is philosophical, from their leafy perch in the ‘burbs, for me and my children is a decision of heart-wrenching consequence: to have a future or not. </blockquote>
Mr. Auguste is a role model for progressive, child-centered choice. He is "the change." Now more of Newark's schoolchildren will be the beneficiaries of that bold vision.<br />
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<br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-69475528806662370172017-04-05T09:12:00.000-04:002017-04-06T09:24:39.295-04:00Newark Mom on LIFO Lawsuit: "I'm Just a Parent Who Wants To Make A Change"<br />
<i>Earlier this month, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E5EuUZ8tPQ&t=3s">a short animated video </a>was released to the public explaining New Jersey’s quality-blind “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff statute. As one of ten remaining states in the country that mandates LIFO, the law requires school districts to lay off teachers based only on the date when they started teaching in the district, with the newest teachers losing their jobs first.</i><br />
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<i>By forbidding administrators from considering classroom effectiveness, this law runs counter to the overwhelming research consistently showing that teacher quality is the most important in-school factor affecting student learning.</i><br />
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<i>In November, six Newark parents filed a <a href="http://edjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Complaint-H.G.-v.-Harrington-Stamped-ORIGINAL.pdf">lawsuit </a>in Mercer County Superior Court called H.G. v. Harrington that asserts that New Jersey’s LIFO law violates students’ constitutional right to a thorough and efficient education. </i><br />
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<i>After viewing the video, I reached out to one of the parents, Wendy S., one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Here are my questions and her answers.</i><br />
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<b>Why did you join this lawsuit? What motivated you to join this effort?</b><br />
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Having gone to school myself in the Newark Public Schools, I remember a lot of teachers who seemed like they were just waiting to retire. Throughout the years I would hear things about seniority, and I noticed myself that good, newer teachers wouldn’t always stick around. So when I found out about the LIFO law– that the last ones in are the first ones out – that never sat well with me. I saw firsthand that our schools employed teachers who had the potential to be great for our kids but would be laid off first..<br />
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<b>What has your experience been like so far as a parent of kids in the Newark Public Schools?</b><br />
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I know that Newark has been working a lot on teacher assessments and grading the teachers – I think that’s great. I’m against teacher layoffs, but if they have to happen, I think these assessments should be the precursor. It shouldn’t be based on how many years – it’s the quality of your work, not the quantity of years that you’ve been here. And with the risk of budget woes, all these good effective teachers are at risk. I have two children currently in elementary school – I want the best teachers out there for them, not necessarily the ones who’ve been here the longest.<br />
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<b>What has it been like to be part of the plaintiff group in this lawsuit? </b><br />
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It’s good. It gives a voice to what’s been going on. There’s an urban myth out there that makes it seem like Newark parents aren’t involved or aren’t aware of what’s going on compared to other parents in the suburbs or other districts – and that’s just not true. Once you’re out there you see that parents do care and parents want what’s best for their kids. It’s amazing how many parents go through different things and are still willing to do what it takes to make a change.<br />
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<b>Lawsuits like yours have been called “anti-teacher” or a “corporate conspiracy” by some critics. What are your thoughts when you hear that? </b><br />
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I have had some people ask me why I’m doing this and I have to explain to them what it’s about. It’s mind-boggling – these conspiracies – I’m for the highest quality education. That’s my main concern. I just explain to people what it’s really about and then they see it differently. People will ask me what my motives are, who’s “behind the lawsuit,” who’s really influencing us. And I say no one, it’s just parents who want to make a change. I feel that this is something that is overall good for all of Newark and all kids in school.<br />
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When people automatically assume that I’m anti-teacher and that we’re attacking unions and what teachers have worked so hard for, I tell them that’s just not what we are about. I respond and say, “Listen, at the end of the day we need to have high-quality teachers teaching our kids.” It’s not about somebody’s pension or how long you’ve been teaching. If you’ve been teaching for 20 years and you’re good at what you’re doing, I don’t see a problem, we should keep that teacher too. If you’re doing what you’re supposed to do and you’re effective and you’re good – you should be rewarded, not penalized.<br />
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One example I give them is that one bad apple makes it bad for everybody. In any profession if somebody’s not effective, they’re not doing their job, they’re not putting out results, it makes everybody look bad. And then everybody is put in the same boat when people say that Newark teachers are bad. And then good teachers who are newer are at risk of leaving. Then what?<br />
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<b>This lawsuit is pretty historic – nothing like this has ever been done in New Jersey. Do you consider yourself a trailblazer? </b><br />
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It’s just mind-boggling. I ponder why this hasn’t been done before. We know it’s a problem. So, I guess we are trailblazing. But it makes you wonder what politicians were really thinking about when they wrote this law - do they care about the kids?<br />
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<b>Do you have any words of encouragement for parents who are concerned about their kids’ education?</b><br />
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Be involved. Find out about policies and procedures. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to challenge people. In my case, since it was about my kids and the quality of the education they’re getting, I feel like I have a right to know about the policies that impact this. Every school has a parent engagement meeting and so I would encourage other parents to get involved in that. Don’t feel intimidated. If you don’t like what you’re hearing, or you’re doubtful, look into it. See how you can make a change.<br />
<br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-78987733779124425542017-04-04T16:46:00.000-04:002017-04-04T16:46:31.226-04:00NJEA as a Fish?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRrkaf818kr55cFARwBNTVtYYOhQravZ6VZ4obVsVAOUJNOXoHP9q7mEm5YSMTLh4b9tzl4bHLYL8dYtq4fa48pviL5L_WOrZcGHkan2yllC38K_UVjLcksAy4oP8LXF6NDKPF3kICb-R/s1600/NJEApredation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRrkaf818kr55cFARwBNTVtYYOhQravZ6VZ4obVsVAOUJNOXoHP9q7mEm5YSMTLh4b9tzl4bHLYL8dYtq4fa48pviL5L_WOrZcGHkan2yllC38K_UVjLcksAy4oP8LXF6NDKPF3kICb-R/s320/NJEApredation.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This image above is from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewJerseyEducationAssociation/">NJEA's facebook page</a>. Predatory, anyone? Not sure what to make of it: NJEA eviscerating charter schools through a <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/sboe/meetings/pubtest/2017/January/RoomA/Wendell%20Steinhauer_Charter%20Schools.pdf">moratorium</a>? <a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2017/03/heres-whats-wrong-with-njeas-strategy.html">NJEA swallowing Senate President Steve Sweeney</a> whole? Pension costs devouring N.J.'s budget? A fantastical depiction of "fully funding" the school aid formula (farcically promised by NJEA's anointed next governor <a href="http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/2017/03/phil-murphy-stuck-on-repeat-mode.html">Phil Murphy</a>) which would gobble up all other state allocations? A piscine display of general prowess?<br />
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Suggestions are welcome.<br />
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<br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-48468750769480681972017-03-30T11:39:00.001-04:002017-03-30T11:39:12.630-04:00Paulo Freire Charter School Closed By State, Even Though "Our Students Are Outperforming Their Peers"<b id="docs-internal-guid-fbf90384-1fd4-be04-47cf-da819bd398db" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 38.05pt; margin-top: 3.85pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Earlier this month the New Jersey Department of Education announced the closing of three charter schools in Newark: Newark Prep, Merit Prep, and Paulo Freire Charter School. The reason given was "poor performance." The closings were announced a day after the deadline for for Newark's universal enrollment system. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 38.05pt; margin-top: 3.85pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In response, leaders of Paulo Freire sent a letter this week to parents. Below is the complete letter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 38.05pt; margin-top: 3.85pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">March 24, 2017</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear Paulo Freire Parents and Guardians:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the interest of transparency, and to uphold the core values that we share as a thriving educational community, we wanted to communicate to each of you directly as school leaders. The last few weeks have been tough on all of us, as we attempt to understand the state’s decision to close the Paulo Freire Charter School.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In all fairness to our students, families, and staff, it was important that we conduct a thorough investigation and fully reflect on this situation. After careful review by the Board of Trustees, administration, and our outside counsel, we firmly believe that the decision by the state to close our school was based on an arbitrary and biased assessment done by the Office of Charter Schools. To be clear, we have come to believe that the Commissioner's decision to close our school was based on misrepresented and inaccurate information.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Specifically, the report which served as a basis for the Commissioner decision, violated state probationary site visit protocols, and the report was substantially anecdotal with very little quantitative data supporting the claims that were made. For example, we noticed that statements such as, “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some interviewed students reported that academic expectations vary greatly across classrooms</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” were made with no reference to percentages, number of persons/incidents, or documentation that supports such a claim.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 5pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 5pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In addition, the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) stated that our school was being closed due to underperformance. However, this statement is false and serves no purpose other than to disrupt and publically hurt the hard work of our parents, students, and staff. For example, the State has claimed that our school had 18 students who did not graduate on time, but this statement is misleading and inaccurate. The state also used this data to adjust our graduation rate; however, the adjusted graduation rate for our school is still higher than that of Newark’s comprehensive high schools. Moreover, our PSAT and SAT data is also higher than Newark’s comprehensive high schools, and other independent charter schools in the city. This data actually supports that our students are outperforming their peers.</span></div>
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<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="480"></col><col width="192"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 30pt;"><td colspan="2" style="background-color: black; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adjusted Graduation Rate</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Newark’s remaining independent charter high schools</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -0.9pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">District Name</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2015-2016</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -0.9pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Newark Public Schools (excluding magnets high schools)</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">68.85%</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -0.9pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paulo Freire Charter School</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">72.70%</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -0.9pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People’s Prep Charter School*</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">69.79%</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -0.9pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marion P. Thomas Charter High School*</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">75.00%</span></div>
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</tbody></table>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Source: </span><a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/data/grate/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.state.nj.us/education/data/grate/</span></a></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 44.65pt;">
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="480"></col><col width="192"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td colspan="2" style="background-color: black; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Composite SAT Score</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Newark’s remaining independent charter high schools</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">District Name</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2015-2016</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Newark Public Schools (excluding magnets high schools)</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1042</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: yellow; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paulo Freire Charter School</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: yellow; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1262</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People’s Prep Charter School*</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1162</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marion P. Thomas Charter High School*</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1029</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Source: </span><a href="http://patch.com/new-jersey/parsippany/391-nj-high-school-average-sat-scores-ranked-highest-lowest-0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://patch.com/new-jersey/parsippany/391-nj-high-school-average-sat-scores-ranked-highest-lowest-0</span></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 44.65pt;">
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="342"></col><col width="156"></col><col width="174"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td colspan="3" style="background-color: black; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PSAT/SAT Participation Rates</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Newark’s remaining independent charter high schools</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">District Name</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PSAT</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -0.9pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SAT (12</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 7.199999999999999pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Grade)</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Newark Public Schools </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(excluding magnets high schools)</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">30%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">75%</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: yellow; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paulo Freire Charter School</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: yellow; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">88%</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -0.9pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: yellow; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">100%</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People’s Prep Charter School*</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">85%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -0.9pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">99%</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 3.6pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marion P. Thomas Charter High School*</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -5.4pt; margin-right: -5.4pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">48%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -0.9pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">67%</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Source: </span><a href="https://homeroom5.doe.state.nj.us/pr/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://homeroom5.doe.state.nj.us/pr/</span></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: -5.75pt;">
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="337"></col><col width="174"></col><col width="162"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td colspan="3" style="background-color: black; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -4.5pt; margin-right: -5.55pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Class of 2016 College Acceptance Rates</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -4.5pt; margin-right: -5.55pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Competitive/Highly Competitive</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -4.5pt; margin-right: -5.55pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">College Acceptance Rate*</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -0.85pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4-Year College </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -0.85pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Acceptance Rate</span></div>
</td><td style="background-color: #bfbfbf; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -5.35pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4-Year College Matriculation Rate</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -5.55pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">21%</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -5.55pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Selectivity is based upon Barron's Ranking of Colleges/ Universities</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -4.5pt; margin-right: -5.55pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">98%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: -4.5pt; margin-right: -5.55pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">90%</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td colspan="3" style="background-color: yellow; border-bottom: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-left: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-right: solid #000000 0.5pt; border-top: solid #000000 0.5pt; padding: 0pt 5.75pt 0pt 5.75pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: yellow; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$3.9 million in scholarships and grants</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a community of educators, parents, and staff, we should be very proud of the strides that we have made since the Paulo Freire Charter School opened its doors. Through all of our work, we have targeted the most at-risk students of our City, and provided them a specially designed environment of support and learning. The results have been seen in our homes, neighborhoods, and in our classrooms. Just last month, students who would have never dreamed of attending college, were stopping us in the halls celebrating their college acceptances and scholarship awards. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Together,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> we have made a difference, and have made a lasting impact on our city. Nothing that state chooses to do, will ever take that away from us!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As we look to the end of the school year, these are the memories we choose to focus on, and we choose not to be defensive about judgments or a system made by people who have never walked in our halls.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While we firmly believe that we have been treated unjustly, unfortunately, there is very little we can realistically do to address this situation. The appeal process has not garnered positive results in the past, and the cost would simply bankrupt our school and cause us to sacrifice our academic program. Even if we were to win, which is very unlikely based on historic outcomes of other schools, it would leave us financially weakened moving forward. For this reason, while it breaks our heart, we have decided that the best course of action will be to invest our time in ensuring the best and most seamless transition for your children and our staff. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As you know, our purpose for founding the Paulo Freire Charter School was to provide a secondary college preparatory option for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> students, especially those who did not test into the magnet high schools and who did not attend a K-12 charter. Based on our college acceptance/matriculation rates and our scholarship award totals, we know that we have proven that Demography is Not Destiny within the City of Newark. We also know that we have indeed accomplished our goal of providing a secondary college preparatory option for students, who may have otherwise not been afforded the opportunity. As a result, we are quite saddened by the Commissioner’s decision to close our school because this decision will once again leave our demographic of Newark’s students underserved. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But as we look to the future, we are united as a school and as a community. Each of us – parent, teacher, or student – have been change agents to fight against systems of oppression, bias, and inequity. These are the tenants that unite us and will continue to unite us all in the years to come.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our founders were born and raised in our great city, and during these last few days, I have often thought of them and the children we serve as inspiration. We are thankful for their commitment, and for your passion for our school – and we promise as we look to these final months we will not let you down.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Civically Yours,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="55" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/22GOZTlcsQ9ZzvUVHi3jdcSuMBxyAzGAOPZ0hZEHaublXcdalY4nIh2t-eed_7ogzXjexaHG08-WQha1s9QB2vpZXCfN6ir2EnfnqKkWf_tQnJBL4vmAd9AX4Jvny24mJEmTMJRITujgkgxPfQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="238" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 27pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 4.5pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Shavon Chambers, M.S.W. Ed.D.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Principal</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paulo Freire Charter School</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="53" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_AO0nyQmkCvTp3e48jbnNu7YfReZFEiDVW3nD-7Hi93M2QzVwnMUen7uEYtMKeFY2fH1p9K5wJoFsfJtbN1_xXf3VqWjr1gyo1uoRZ-EYG9CqinkE_U3NacWaQZbjE-iaCpwRaQTEKNX9JPMiw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="255" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tauheedah F. Baker, M.Ed. MPA, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Executive Director/Chief School Administrator</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 39pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paulo Freire Charter School</span></div>
<br /><br /><br /><br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-2368901387075911622017-03-30T11:20:00.001-04:002017-03-31T10:47:38.025-04:00Here's What's Wrong With NJEA's Strategy To Unseat Senate President Steve SweeneyThe <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/NJ-teachers-union-is-trying-to-topple-Senate-President-Stephen-Sweeney.html">Philadelphia Inquirer</a> reported this week that the New Jersey Education Association just launched a full-scale attack against long-time Democratic leader and Senate President Steve Sweeney. The union’s <a href="https://changenjpolitics.com/">new web page</a> lists a variety of betrayals that include “he cut our take home pay,” “he failed to secure our pensions,” “he took away bargaining rights,” and “he refuses to enforce the School Funding Reform Act.”<br />
<br />
In what the Inquirer calls “a risky move,” NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer said the union’s endgame was “backing a primary challenger or a Republican in a general election, or supporting a challenger in a Senate leadership fight.”<br />
<br />
Fair enough, although the last time NJEA tried to do the same thing in 1991 it failed. What are the odds of it working this time? Politics and truth are rarely close companions so let's look at NJEA's platform for removing Sweeney from office or, their second choice, deposing him from his post as leader of the State Senate.<br />
<br />
We'll start with this: Every single item listed in the list of “broken promises” is blatantly false or mathematically impossible. Let's review.<br />
<br />
<b>Is Sweeney personally responsible for cutting teachers’ take home pay? </b><br />
<br />
In 2011 a <a href="http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/S3000/2937_I1.PDF">bipartisan bill</a> (also known as <a href="http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/PL11/78_.HTM">Chapter 78</a>), sponsored by five senators including Sweeney, ushered in a reform of public workers’ contributions to benefits premiums for pensions and healthcare. Previously teachers had paid 1.5% of their salaries -- a mere pittance -- for platinum healthcare coverage. The reform bill required a tiered system of increased contributions based on salaries -- the higher your salary, the higher your contributions -- which, in this era of 2% caps on school district budget increases, saved districts’ buttocks. Technically Chapter 78 expired last summer but there’s no going back to 1.5% without massive teacher lay-offs because higher contributions are baked into district budgets.<br />
<br />
<b>Did Sweeney fail to secure pensions?</b><br />
<br />
Actually pensions are insecure (a more accurate word is unsalvageable) because for the last twenty-five years or so, well before Sweeney’s tenure as Senate President, governors have used accounting tricks to create the pretense of fully funding pensions. This week <a href="http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/17/03/27/moody-s-downgrades-nj-credit-rating-fourth-time-while-christie-in-office/">Moody’s downgraded N.J.’s rating</a> again because our pension liability is $50 billion. For context, the entire state budget is $35 billion. According to whom you ask, the system will go broke in 8-12 years. No matter how you finagle the numbers, there is simply no scenario in which the state ponies up enough money to salvage future teachers’ pensions without additional reform and sacrifices.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Did Sweeney take away bargaining rights? </b><br />
<br />
No, Chapter 78 took healthcare premium contributions negotiations away from districts and created a statewide system. However, the bill has expired and local bargaining units are free to negotiate with local school boards for this item. If a local unit prevailed, the only way a board could accommodate this giveback would be laying off teachers, raising class sizes, cutting programs, and hurting kids. That scenario may work for NJEA central office staffers. It wouldn’t work for the teachers I know.<br />
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<b>Does Sweeney personally refuse to fully fund the school aid formula?</b><br />
<br />
No, reality refuses to fully fund the school aid formula, also known as School Funding Reform Act. (SFRA). No matter what an aspiring gubernatorial candidate tells you -- including NJEA’s favored son Phil Murphy -- full funding is mathematically impossible. SFRA is dead. It’s Monty Python’s Norwegian Blue, not pining for the Fjords but passed on, no more, ceased to be, expired and gone to meet his maker, stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisibile. If NJEA hadn’t nailed it to its perch it would be pushing up daisies.<br />
<br />
SFRA is an ex-school funding formula. Here’s why. Remember that the entire state budget is $35 million. School aid comprises $13.3 million. Phil Murphy is promising NJEA members that he will find an extra $5.6 billion a year, effectively increasing the state’s contribution to districts by almost 40%. And that’s not including the hypothetical reversal of Chapter 78. And fully funding pensions. Where is that money coming from? He doesn’t say because it doesn’t exist.<br />
<br />
Now, in all fairness, NJEA has lots of money to undermine Sweeney. But do leaders really think that their members will be well-served by severing any amity between themselves and the Senator, himself a member of the iron workers’ union, based on a strategy of falsehoods? After all, Sweeney is highly-regarded throughout the state. He’s never lost an election. He has plenty of campaign contributions, Heck, he’s even been endorsed by Phil Murphy, not to mention U.S. Senator Cory Booker.<br />
<br />
Here’s Carl Golden, courtesy of the Inquirer:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“If there’s one vote that incumbent legislators make that's more jealously guarded than anything else, it’s the ability to pick their own leaders,” said Carl Golden, who was press secretary for two Republican governors. “That's been proven time after time after time.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Are the Democrats going to say, ‘Well, we don’t pick our leaders, the NJEA does?’ </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The optics of that are not particularly complimentary."</blockquote>
NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-32227081216856110872017-03-28T15:33:00.000-04:002017-03-28T15:33:07.310-04:00This is Why A Rich Town Like Princeton Needs a Charter School<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(This is a guest post by Princeton Resident Liz Winslow)</i></div>
<br />
The following are remarks I’ve prepared for a Princeton Board of Education budget meeting this evening, but might not get to deliver, being pressed for time. But I want people to know our story. My son’s story. In case I never got a shot at the podium during public comment.<br />
<br />
I’m Liz Winslow, and my disabled sons are Tristan Schartman, age 10, and Aaron Schartman, age 4. Many people in this room know me — or of me — as a strong supporter of Princeton Charter School (PCS). That doesn’t mean I’m anti-Princeton Public Schools (PPS); in fact, Aaron is in the handicapped pre-K at Riverside Elementary School and is doing wonderfully with Lynn Spirko and her staff. However, not being anti-PPS is not mutually exclusive with being pro what works for my kids, and PPS did not work Tristan. It’s hard to tell a multi-year journey in a few sentences, but in the three years Tristan was at Littlebrook, teachers consistently sent him, starting at age 5, to the principal’s office several times a week as a “discipline” problem. During this time he exhibited echolalia, lack of eye contact, grunting, tics, and behavioral challenges. By the end of first grade, Tristan, who at this point was also weakening physically, had zero self-concept, as he was apparently regarded as “the bad kid.” By the end of second grade, his teacher told us he’d need a full time para to continue in a mainstream class, a process we had no idea how to even begin (to be fair, this particular teacher tried to work very collaboratively with us in second grade). And that is when we made the decision that if he didn’t get in at Charter, we’d have to move.<br />
<br />
Think about this. Do you know what it’s like to have a little five year old boy, bullied, at one time sent home from afterschool needing stitches in his face, think he’s “the bad kid?” Or picking him up at age six, and seeing four kids holding him down, stealing his shoes, while playground aides looked at the sky? He was bullied. He had no friends. He lacked the capacity to function in school, and we were told simply that we needed to do something about that. Can you imagine what this did to him, and to our family?<br />
<br />
Well right after getting into Princeton Charter, we then took this “bad kid” to a renowned psychiatrist, a great psychologist, and a MacArthur fellow in neuropsych when he was age 8. The above-mentioned collaborative second grade teacher kindly filled out extensive forms for the neuropsych. All three said, “autism — and look at his symptoms — how could the school have missed this?” Now, is there plenty of blame to go around, for everyone from his preschool to the original psychiatrist we took him to at age five, to us missing signs that now we understand? Sure. But missing autism, and treating an autistic child punitively for his oddities as a discipline problem? That’s not just a pretty big miss, as one teacher has since said to me, on the part of a school. That’s outright failure. FAILURE. By what is supposed to be one of the best districts in the nation. His teachers weren’t bad people, and I don’t think they didn’t care. But their training clearly was inadequate, and that is an administration-level problem.<br />
<br />
During Tristan’s first month at PCS, he didn’t want to interact with teachers, as he’d gotten so used to being punished. But after a few weeks, when he was welcomed as he was — and with the right therapies both in and out of school — he bloomed. PCS has embraced working with our son, and has notified us promptly and candidly when they’ve seen additional issues. The bullying is over; PCS went out of its way to foster friendships between him and other children. My son just had his first real birthday party attended by several kids that wasn’t a weak attempt to invite the whole class, or just the sons of my own friends. I cannot tell you what that means to him, and us. And that is because of PCS. And despite PPS.<br />
<br />
It is very much worth noting that 80% of the budget increase has nothing whatsoever to do with the Charter School. But that falls on deaf ears to those who’ve never had an experience like ours at PPS. We know kids at PCS who are there for a number of reasons — including PPS’s flouting every day of New Jersey state law to provide a gifted and talented program. When 20% of all kindergartners succeed or try to vote with their feet for PCS — and that’s to say nothing of the kids who go to private school — a lot of introspection and reflection is in order at PPS to find out what is driving a large minority of Princeton’s kids to want to leave its schools. Instead, groups such as Keep PPS Strong, SOS-NJ, the teacher’s union, and the Board of Ed’s own president have called PCS racist, segregationist, guilty of vandalism, and elitist. It is none of those things. It fills a need that PPS does not for a substantial portion of its students.<br />
<br />
It is also worth noting that per the local paper “Town Topics,” the pro-rata cost of the average tax increase in town related to the PCS expansion is about $47 per household. Not per person — per household. That’s the cost of two pizzas plus tip. Is this *really* what we’re fighting over in a town with such unbelievably blessed resources, to give kids the best chance they can have?<br />
<br />
When people say, “Why should my taxes go to a school that my kids don’t need?” — could I not be saying the same about sports programs that Tristan, who also receives physical therapy, another need Littlebrook missed — will never participate in? Could I not just say that about Littlebrook as a whole — despite a budget outsized by any measure versus comparable districts, why is my money going to a school that fails to recognize as common a condition as autism? Why indeed?<br />
<br />
I’ll close by re-iterating that I’m not anti-PPS; I’m pro what works for my child. PPS is working now for Aaron, and the jury is out where we’ll send him for kindergarten, depending on his abilities; right now, sadly, we are frequent flyers to CHOP as they try to suss out what looks like a fundamental genetic issue in our sons. And that is what’s getting lost in the weeds of massaged per student costs, and contests over which district had the fancier fundraising gala, and bogus charges of racism. If you want to make PCS a memory, find out why students leave PPS and fix those problems. In the interim, it is simply a shameful tyranny of the majority to demonize parents and children who are seeking school success for their kids when their zoned option failed them. Work with them, not against them, until such a point that PPS can have all of its zoned students succeed in its own schools. Thank you.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-23609356386860082662017-03-24T11:31:00.001-04:002017-03-24T11:37:50.146-04:00News from Camden: All Schools Must Rise and So This One Must CloseThis week Camden Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard announced that Charles Sumner Elementary School, which serves 210 K-6 students and employs 57 staff members, will close at the end of this school year.<br />
<br />
School closings are hard on communities. But this one is a no-brainer.<br />
<br />
First, academic performance is dismal, despite multiple interventions and total cost per pupil of <a href="http://www.nj.gov/cgi-bin/education/csg/16/csg.pl?string=dist_code0680&maxhits=650">$25,027</a>. Only <a href="http://infocards.camden.k12.nj.us/charles-sumner-elementary-school">three percent of students reached proficiency i</a>n language arts and math, according to the district’s Information Card, which earns it the lowest possible grade of “underperforming." The <a href="http://infocards.camden.k12.nj.us/charles-sumner-elementary-school">annual community survey</a> reveals that only thirty-two percent of students consider the building safe and fewer than half the staff believes that the school supports “overall instructional quality,” The building itself was constructed in 1926 and lacks many of the amenities of newer facilities; it’s also subject to recurring flooding.<br />
<br />
Students were leaving anyway. At one point the school enrolled 500 students but parents voted with their feet, sending them to higher-performing traditional, charter, or hybrid charter/district schools.<br />
<br />
Where will the remaining kids go? From today’s <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/Camden-school-closing-Rouhanifard-Renaissance-charter.html">Philadelphia Inquirer</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Students enrolled in Sumner will be guaranteed seats at Cream, [district spokesman Brendan] Lowe said, as well as at one of two public-charter hybrid “Renaissance” schools, Camden Prep or KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy, but the district will work with families on deciding which of the city’s schools is best for each student. Officials also hope to move many of Sumner’s 57 full-time staff members with the Sumner students, Lowe said.</blockquote>
The community is aware of Sumner’s failings through the district’s new emphasis on transparency, which includes much <a href="http://www.camden.k12.nj.us/pdf/news_releases//2016-2017/06-New%20School%20Quality%20Ratings%20Prompt%20District%20to%20Kick%20Off%20Parent%20Listening%20Tour.pdf">outreach</a> from Superintendent Rouhanifard. And district officials have been working to ensure that the old Sumner site doesn’t become another vacant lot in the Liberty Park section of the city; they’ve already reached out to local groups, including renaissance schools that may need more space.<br />
<br />
All in all, a win for students, parents, and academic improvement in New Jersey's most troubled school district..<br />
<br />
There's another school is in its last year in the city: Camden Community Charter School, which currently enrolls 679 student in grades K-8. Acting Commissioner Kimberly <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/nj/NJ-directs-Camden-Community-Charter-School-to-close-by-June-30.html">Harrington wrote in a letter</a> to the school’s board that “ the school is not offering its students a high-quality education,” that instruction “was focused on the acquisition of factual knowledge rather that the application of knowledge to investigate problems,” and classrooms were characterized by “low levels of student engagement and disruptive behavior.”<br />
<br />
While student performance at the charter was higher than Sumner -- student proficiency rates are 13% to 15% -- charter school are subject to higher degrees of accountability in exchange for higher degrees of autonomy. (The school is also one of N.J.’s two for-profit charters; the other one, run by the same managing group CSMI, has another school in Atlantic City. We like our charters non-profit in New Jersey.)<br />
<br />
Like at Sumner, Camden Community Charter students will have access through Camden’s universal enrollment system to traditional schools, renaissance schools, and old-fashioned charters. “As difficult as a school closure is, I truly believe both students and staff will be better situated next year,” said Superintendent Rouhanifard.“This will put them on a better track.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-67566725962463676622017-03-23T15:35:00.000-04:002017-03-23T15:35:03.311-04:00Newark Public Schools: We Are "Hampered" By LIFO Laws that Privilege Adults Over Children.<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Defendant admits to the allegations contained in Paragraph 12 of the Complaint in part. Defendants declare that the District Schools are making great strides towards to meet the constitutionally-mandated Thorough and Effective education requirements for all schools in the District. <b>Through no fault of its own, however, and even without additional cuts to the District's funding, the District has been hampered by statutory restrictions that essentially protect the interests of adults over the rights of the children of Newark.</b> As New Jersey's Courts have recognized, we must do everything we can to create an environment where these children can learn effectively to create a pathway to success in school and in life. The most important way to make that happen is to ensure that we are able to retain our best teachers in the Newark Public Schools.</blockquote>
<br />
That's from the <a href="http://edjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Answer-Newark_Public.pdf">latest court filing</a> from Newark Public Schools in <a href="http://edjustice.org/projects/nj/">HG v. Harrington,</a> the lawsuit pressed by six Newark mothers who are challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey's quality-blind lay-off system, also known as LIFO, or "last in, first out." According to a press release issued today by Partnership for Educational Justice, "Newark’s answer includes admissions that overwhelmingly concede the allegations put forward by the plaintiffs. This filing is significant for two reasons: 1) the district admits that New Jersey’s LIFO law causes harm to students and 2) these admissions undermine the credibility of motions to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the teachers’ unions, who intervened as defendants in the case in December 2016."<br />
<br />
In other words, Newark Public Schools' legal counsel just conceded that the practice of LIFO, which forbids local districts from dismissing tenured teachers based on effectiveness of instruction and requires that districts dismiss teachers during lay-offs based solely on time served, hurts children and deprives them of their constitutional rights. No wonder that N.J. is one of only ten states that adhere to this archaic and unprofessional form of staffing schools.<br />
<br />
The press release also lists the following admissions made by Newark Public Schools:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>NPS admits that laying off teachers without any consideration of their quality prohibits children from being educated in the constitutionally mandated manner (paragraph 14)</li>
<li>NPS admits that enforcement of LIFO in Newark will remove quality teachers, which leads to lower test scores, lower high school grad rates, lower college attendance rates, and sharply reduced lifetime earnings (paragraph 104)</li>
<li>NPS admits that its current practice of keeping ineffective teachers on the district payroll, including those in a pool of “educators without placement schools” (EWPS), is harmful and unsustainable (paragraphs 80-81) and that the EWPS pool would be wholly unnecessary were it not for LIFO (paragraph 89)</li>
<li>NPS admits that LIFO undermines its ability to attract and retain effective teachers (paragraphs 96-103)</li>
<li>NPS notes that the statutes governing termination proceedings for tenured teachers do not address the impact of quality-blind layoffs on students through the retention of low-performing teachers in times of budget cuts (paragraph 93)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
We all know this, right? For a district under fiscal strain and falling enrollment, budget cuts and lay-offs are inevitable. And because of LIFO these lay-offs will be determined robotically, without regard for educator talent and skill. Sure, we have a limp form of <a href="chrome-extension://bpmcpldpdmajfigpchkicefoigmkfalc/views/app.html">teacher evaluations based on student outcome</a>s, but one in which only 2% of teachers were labeled "ineffective." So Newark Public Schools is obliged to maintain a rubber room for teachers whom no principal would hire (the EWPS), obliged to retain low-performing teachers, and obliged to deprive children of their constitutional rights to an effective education.<br />
<br />
I admire Newark Public Schools for its honest admissions. I live in hope that New Jersey will join forty other states and relieve children and families of the burden of a tenure system that privileges adult job retention rights over the effective education of Newark's children.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-27636891061634472002017-03-22T10:09:00.001-04:002017-03-22T10:09:27.595-04:00Jonah and the WhaleCall me Ishmael.<br />
<br />
Excuse the melodrama but right now my husband and I feel like we’re about to embark on a dark, god-less, soul-crushing journey. Our son Jonah (whom I’ve written about <a href="http://educationpost.org/want-know-im-obsessed-educational-equity-meet-disabled-son/">before</a>) just turned 21 and will age out of the school system this year. Parents of children with disabilities call this milestone “falling off a cliff.”<br />
<br />
The cliff in question is the cessation of Jonah’s rights, inscribed in federal law, for services that nurture his development, education, and relative independence. For eighteen years he’s been cradled within the sheltering arms of laws and regulations that protect children with disabilities: the right to a free education within the least restrictive environment, the right to therapies that foster his ability to learn, and the right to “transition” services, like the job-training program he attends right now.<br />
<br />
But on June 20th, the last day of the school year in my Central New Jersey school district, a gong is rung and Jonah’s rights are sucked into the black undertow of the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD). We thought that navigating special education services was arduous. However, after months of trying to decode the hieroglyphics of adult services, we realize that our family’s trip through Jonah’s school years was a just a day at the beach. The source of the current danger, of course, isn’t a white whale. It’s the lack of federal regulation and accountability that allow states like New Jersey to maintain twelve-year waiting lists for residential placement and that require parents to master the arcana of Comprehensive Assessment Tools, Support Coordinator Agencies, Care Management, Medicaid eligibility, ad nauseum. Truly, ad nauseum.<br />
<br />
If you’ll excuse the digression, our family’s circumstances (which we share with all parents of young adults with disabilities unless they happen to be as rich as Midas) reminds me of the Senate’s 50-49 vote earlier this month to eliminate the accountability regulations for the Obama Administration’s reauthorized federal education law called the Every Student Succeeds Act. Hence, states are now free to count students’ progress any which way and build meaningless rating systems for schools. Critics, according to <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2017/03/senate_overturns_essa_accountability_white_house.html">PoliticsK12,</a> charge that this endrun around accountability will “endanger crucial protections for disadvantaged students.”<br />
<br />
Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington), who helped craft ESSA, said that the Obama regulations provided “clarity on accountability, on reporting requirements, and on state plan requirements. And it helps ensure that no student, no matter where they live, can fall through those cracks...If the rug's pulled out from under these states, there could be chaos.”<br />
<br />
Ecce chaos.<br />
<br />
Denise Marshall, executive director of The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, bemoaned the rescinding of ESSA regulations, telling <a href="https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2017/03/07/disability-overturning-education/23418/">Disability Scoop</a> that “we cannot imagine how, without regulation, the Department (of Education) will engender compliance with (the) new statute in 50 states plus territories.”<br />
<br />
Yet ESSA survives, albeit nursing a few more tooth extractions. Good for local control addicts, Trumpists, and Tea Party-ers. Bad for historically-disenfranchised kids.<br />
<br />
But there’s not even a weak ESSA for adults with disabilities. There’s no safe harbor. There’s no assurance of protection or programming or reasonable timelines for placement in group homes. Of course, denial of necessary services happens all the time in K-12 special education, but at least there are rights and due process and recourse for families and their special needs children.<br />
<br />
But not for my twenty-one year-old son whom my husband shaves each morning, not for my six-foot manchild who towers over me as we arrange his bed each night and pick out his clothes for the next day, not for my Jonah, who can fix my computer but can’t figure out the correct change if he wants to buy a soda.<br />
<br />
Nakeishia Knox, the Newark mother of a son with autism, told <a href="https://njmonthly.com/articles/top-doctors/aging-out-autism-grow-up/">NJ Monthly</a>,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
.“What happens when, God forbid…” She stops, unable to complete the sentence. Finally, she says, “We won’t live forever.” Unfortunately, living forever seems to the couple to be the only way they can ensure a happy, productive life for their son. As an autistic young adult, Philip faces an uncertain future. After he ages out of the public education system in 2017, there’s no telling what will await him.</blockquote>
And this, from a couple with more resources at their disposal and some “ins” with DDD:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Peter Bell and his wife were given a list of coordinators to choose from. “But we have absolutely no information to go by as to who’s good, what they offer and what a support coordinator really does,” says Bell. He’d like to think that, as insiders, he and his wife are up on these things, “but even we are intimidated by the process,” he says. </blockquote>
As my husband and I sift through the DDD material, we find ourselves (with apologies to Melville) going grim around the mouth. It is a damp, drizzly November in our souls. It is a queer time for us in this strange, mixed affair we call life. As parents of a young adult with disabilities navigating an unaccountable sea, we can’t help but take this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof we but dimly discern.<br />
<br />
Maybe we should have named him Ishmael.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-3241764596279322792017-03-16T11:13:00.000-04:002017-03-29T09:29:27.802-04:00Hey, Princeton and Save Our Schools-NJ: If You're So Worried About Princeton Charter's Impact on Segregation, Here's a Suggestion<div class="tr_bq">
Every week I have a piano lesson in Princeton and so I drive six miles down Route 206 from my home in Lawrence, located smack in the middle between the wealthy college town and impoverished Trenton. As I enter Princeton I pass the Peacock Inn, where the "jacuzzi suite" goes for $660 a night (off-season rate). Then I bear right on Nassau Street, Princeton's main drag, with ivied Princeton University on my right and a panoply of shops like Brooks Brothers, Ann Taylor, J.Crew, Lulumon, and Ralph Lauren on my left. The median home value in Princeton is<a href="https://www.zillow.com/princeton-nj/home-values/"> $806,900</a> and the average household income is <a href="http://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NJ/Princeton-Demographics.html">$154,468</a>. </div>
<br />
This is the town that, in an effort led by Princeton-based Save Our Schools-NJ, is virulently fighting a 76-student expansion to Princeton Charter School. (The D.O.E. approved the expansion last week but the district is appealing the decision.) The traditional school district's first objection is fiscal strain for those extra tuition payments, although it's worth noting that Princeton Regional Public Schools spends <a href="http://www.nj.gov/cgi-bin/education/csg/16/csg.pl">$24,634</a> annually per student. For context, that's <a href="http://www.nj.gov/cgi-bin/education/csg/16/csg.pl?string=dist_code2580&maxhits=650">$5,000 more</a> than my middle-class, diverse town and even <a href="http://www.nj.gov/cgi-bin/education/csg/16/csg.pl?string=dist_code5210&maxhits=650">$1,500 more </a>than impoverished Trenton, an Abbott district that, according to the old court rulings, should receive as much compensatory aid as the richest districts.<br />
<br />
SOS-NJ and the district's second objection to the charter school's expansion is that the charter increases "segregation," despite the implementation of a lottery weighted for low-income children. Yeah, I know. Words fail me.<br />
<br />
But they don't fail Vivek Pai, a Princeton Charter School parent who wrote this letter to a paper called <a href="http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/category/community/mailbox/">Town Topics</a>. Don't miss the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that decimates the second claim of the anti-choice cadre.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
To the Editor: </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I read Cara Carpenito’s letter last week asking other parents to examine their conscience [“PCS Parents Should Examine Their Conscience: Can They Continue to ‘Choose’ a Segregated School,” March 8 Mailbox]. Princeton is a town of unmistakable wealth, with average incomes triple that of our neighbor Trenton. Adding to our schools’ economic and racial segregation, we additionally bus in mostly Caucasian students from wealthy, suburban Cranbury, which is almost as far away as Trenton. Princeton and Cranbury students attend schools that afford privileges out of reach for most Trenton children. To address this issue, I implore the Board of Education to implement a voluntary program where Princeton parents who want to demonstrate their commitment to equality can offer to swap their children’s spots in Princeton schools with children from Trenton. Then, instead of having parents chastise others about segregation, and generating ill will, they can instead lead by example and serve as an inspiration to everyone. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I also read Lori Weir’s letter about eliminating sibling preference at PCS [“N.J. Commissioner of Education Decision a Case of Taxation Without Representation,” March 8 Mailbox], which even PPS uses in their lottery-based dual-language immersion program. To get some facts about who would be most impacted if siblings were split across schools, I examined the Pew Research Center report on Parenting in America. Across the United States, 33 percent of Caucasian mothers had 3 or more children, and the numbers for other racial groups were Asian (27 percent), African-American (40 percent), and Hispanic (50 percent). If Princeton has similar demographic patterns, eliminating sibling preference would impact African-Americans and Hispanics more than other racial groups. In comparison, the weighted lottery approved for PCS will increase the chances for economically disadvantaged groups. Numerically, the calls to dismantle sibling preference seem counterproductive. In the longer term, neither sibling preference nor a lottery would be needed if PCS were allowed to expand to meet all of the demand for it. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Vivek Pai<br />
Bertrand Drive</blockquote>
NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-13857762755408804372017-03-10T11:41:00.000-05:002017-03-11T10:17:41.126-05:00This Is How My Daughter Celebrated International Women's DayForgive my self-indulgence on this snowy Friday. My younger daughter Emily is a second-year chemistry and physics teacher at <a href="http://www.cityonahill.org/">City On A Hill Charter School</a> on Circuit Street in Boston. The <a href="http://cityonahill.s17.gcnet.co/city-on-a-hill-1/our-students/">students at COAH </a>are 98% minority and 83% low-income. Twenty-four percent are eligible for special education services and 10% are English Language Learners. <a href="http://cityonahill.s17.gcnet.co/city-on-a-hill-1/our-results/">Student outcomes </a>are stellar; for example, 91% of COAH students scored proficient or advanced proficient in tenth-grade language arts on Massachusetts’ Common Core-aligned standardized assessments and 81% were proficient or advanced proficient in math.<br />
<br />
On Wednesday, in honor of International Women’s Day, Emily switched it up a bit in her physics classes and taught a lesson called “Data on Girls in STEM Classes." Students were presented with a series of graphs on gender differences in STEM fields. Here’s an example:<br />
<br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-bdcbed84-b907-85ad-9fa5-b74703e17142"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Figure 4: Bachelor’s Degrees Earned in Selected Science and Engineering Fields, by Gender, 2007</span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-bdcbed84-b907-33cb-c2d7-e0e94ab85291"><img height="489" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/v3sb5EB0HB23t7QLuhBNGRRgp9_wc-Xi4sDjqnERmVBuhZRvgGzd8iuwyHlPSU4tsMisbPHZJw-ygb6kA9oziHBca3gUUoGJbnQ9twYRlEQnAguX4tgEewvFmhzguffU0McsF7MWvTGPS4zMyw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="351" /></span><br />
<br />
After analysis and discussion of the graphs, the class read an article called <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cailin-oconnor/women-math-and-science_b_6573074.html">“Are Women Worse at Math? It’s Time to Stop Asking,</a>” followed by this writing prompt:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Reflect</b>: Below, propose one specific step our school, community, or policymakers could take to address the issues facing women and girls in STEM. Why did you choose it? Why is it important?</blockquote>
Here are some student responses:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Start one commercial campaign that demonstrates the excellence that girls can do and how successful they can be. This will fill growing girls with self-esteem to become something greater and achieve more than men.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Schools can take one day to talk about women and their struggles. Educating everyone about women and coming up with alternatives to better women’s futures. It’s important because women are just as important as men.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We could have meetings with the women to talk about the issues going on in society and try to take a stand. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
An idea I have for my school and community is that they should offer more video game-related classes and fields , specifically for women and girls. In the gaming industry it is male-dominated; there’s the stereotype that video games are a male thing. I find that false because there are girls who love video games, like me. I’m referring to girls who are actually gamers. It’s important because there are very few female game developers , designers, programmers, artists, audioists, managers, etc. I know that there are girls like me who want to be in the gaming industry.</blockquote>
<br />
I'd be remiss to not point out that Massachusetts suburbanites voted down <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Authorization_of_Additional_Charter_Schools_and_Charter_School_Expansion,_Question_2_(2016)">a proposition </a>in November that would have permitted Boston to add twelve new charter schools, a demonstrated need because currently <a href="http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=21469"> 34,000 Boston students </a>are sitting on charter school waiting lists. You can thank teacher union president <a href="http://www.massteacher.org/issues_and_action/charter_schools/bmad_testimony_on_charter_ballot_initiative.aspx">Barbara Madeloni </a>for the state's rejection of Prop 2. Meanwhile, I'm thankful to have a daughter like Emily.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-47227129761574809382017-03-06T14:50:00.000-05:002017-03-06T14:59:09.752-05:00Why Do My Neighbors Demonize the Only Public School -- Princeton Charter -- Where My Special Needs Son Has Thrived?<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>This is a guest post by Liz Winslow Schartman, a Princeton, New Jersey resident and parent of three children, two of whom have special needs.</i></blockquote>
<br />
Dear neighbors,<br />
<br />
I know some of you are very angry that the <a href="https://planetprinceton.com/2017/03/01/state-department-of-education-approves-princeton-charter-school-expansion/">New Jersey Department of Education announced</a> last Wednesday that it had granted Princeton Charter School’s application to expand its enrollment by seventy-six students. But I have a different point of view.<br />
<br />
My husband and I, as you know, have three children. Our middle child is neuro-typical and would bloom wherever she was planted. However, our two boys are another story.<br />
<br />
Our oldest child (a boy) is being seen at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to pin down what they believe is a genetic syndrome based on physical examination and ancestry data, and since our youngest (also a boy) has his own special needs, pursuing answers here take up a lot of our time, money, and emotional energy. Our youngest, age 4, has the benefit of this being our third parenting rodeo and one where we know our rights about assessments, Child Study Teams, and individualized education. He is now in a self-contained handicapped classroom at Riverside Elementary School and right now my greatest hope for him is that one day he will be mainstreamed.<br />
<br />
Our older son is autistic, has severe ADHD, and multiple physical problems. (At one point his working diagnosis was facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy but genetic testing ruled that out and we’re currently <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TristansGenes/">waiting for another round</a>.) At first we were reluctant to medicate for all the usual reasons, but now we realize that he can't do "med holidays" because he then loses his words, crouches, and grunts. He was only diagnosed with autism because we went through vast personal effort and private expense. Otherwise - if he, for example, had an autistic meltdown and needed five minutes in a quiet space - staff at Princeton Public Schools’ Littlebrook Elementary School, which he attended at the time, saw the episode simply as a temper tantrum and thus a discipline problem, escalated the situation, and sent him to the Principal’s office. Never once was autism mentioned to us by the many experts in Princeton's public schools, so it is distressing that we needed to go outside the school system entirely to get a proper diagnosis.<br />
<br />
My neighbors, you know firsthand my son’s issues. So do many of the teachers posting anti-charter rhetoric on our local news platform, <a href="https://planetprinceton.com/">Planet Princeton.</a> He has been failed by so many adults in his life -- including his two full-time working parents. (I became a stay-at-home mom partway through Tristan's kindergarten year).<br />
<br />
Yet, dear neighbors, you demonize Princeton Charter School, the only public school where our son has thrived.<br />
<br />
We charter parents are not elitists. We're not snobs. But like our son, many Princeton Charter School students fell through the cracks at Princeton Public Schools. Special education services and an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) should have been offered at the traditional district yet our son, starting at age 5 (5!) spent several afternoons a week in the Principal’s office because he was a "discipline" problem.<br />
<br />
Incredibly, this need for multiple removals from the classroom vanished upon arriving at Princeton Charter School where we worked collaboratively on a proper IEP and where his teachers recognized his talents an gave him the lattitude to learn.<br />
<br />
Neighbors, please just ask yourselves who has the real interest here: Princeton Charter School, which won't have to submit a charter renewal application for four years and will add another 76 students, weighted to more accurately reflect Princeton Township’s demographics, or Princeton Public Schools, which is battling over tuition payments that amount to about 1% of its <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/finance/fp/ufb/2016/reports/21/4255/UFB17_4255.pdf">annual $83 million operating budget</a> ? Who really had the needs of the kids in mind?NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-52517637505818827242017-03-01T14:44:00.000-05:002017-03-02T09:12:40.148-05:00"We Will Live By Choice and Not By Chance!"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYykS5OhHUMgX4IUiTZjtKSqfa1UKdR5UBiXnpqIFjAYFaJo0Y0_nOz3PCrXdl2fAYLEZ6AZ55s3j_eE9L7pyGIqdOBTSC4PAa9uAx-bU1xzI-X70U-Ny4zljGjsd-KT9gED5ameMRUR-c/s1600/masonic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYykS5OhHUMgX4IUiTZjtKSqfa1UKdR5UBiXnpqIFjAYFaJo0Y0_nOz3PCrXdl2fAYLEZ6AZ55s3j_eE9L7pyGIqdOBTSC4PAa9uAx-bU1xzI-X70U-Ny4zljGjsd-KT9gED5ameMRUR-c/s640/masonic.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
This credo -- "we will live by choice and not by chance" echoed through Trenton’s Masonic Hall on Monday morning as two hundred charter school parents chanted together as they prepared for a series of meetings with New Jersey legislators. The “Charter Parent Action Day,” organized by JerseyCAN, the Better Education Institute, and the New Jersey Charter School Association, was in response to a series of current and pending challenges to N.J.'s public charter schools that enrolls more than 45,000 students in 88 public charter schools. These challenges include:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> a <a href="http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15/07/07/op-ed-charter-school-moratorium-bill-is-endorsement-of-njea-s-death-grip-on-public-education/">charter moratorium</a> proposed by Assembly Education Committee chairman Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) and Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex);</li>
<li> a<a href="http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2017/03/group_fights_expansion_of_7_newark_charter_schools.html#incart_most-commented_education_article"> court challenge </a>by Education Law Center (which is largely funded by NJEA and allied with the Princeton-based Save our Schools-NJ) that argues that the State’s authorization of charter school expansion in Newark based on parent demand is “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable";</li>
<li>Demands from <a href="http://www.njea.org/news/2017-01-04/njea-to-sboe-don-t-gut-charter-regulations">NJEA</a> that beholden legislators vote against new charter school regulations that would benefit children;</li>
<li>The likelihood of NJ’s next governor being less friendly to public school choice than Chris Christie. (N.J.’s antiquated charter school law delegates charter authorization solely to political appointees.); </li>
<li><a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2016/12/latino-parent-voices-are-ignored-in-red.html">Six civil rights complaints </a>instigated by a group called “NJ Latino Coalition” (which doesn’t actually represent Latino parents) that charges that charter schools, specifically Red Band Charter School and Princeton Charter School cherry-pick children and increase segregation. (This doesn't happen because applicants are chosen by random lotteries, although some are weighted to increase enrollment of low-income children and those of color.)</li>
</ul>
<br />
I wish Assembly members Diegnan and Jasey were there. I wish Education Law Center’s Executive Director David Sciarra was there. I wish Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Phil Murphy was there. I wish SOS-NJ’s leaders were there.<br />
<br />
If they were, they would have heard Eladio Diaz, a LEAP charter school parent in Camden, plead to Assemblyman Arthur Barkley (once we got to the Statehouse), “why should we have to fight for the only thing that we have?”<br />
<br />
If they were, they would have heard Newark charter school father Altorice Frazier exhort the parents to “stand tall” because “we won’t stand for anything less.”<br />
<br />
If they were, they would have heard Charles Love, charter parent and a candidate for the Newark School Board, remind the parents that “we are those who can change and correct the errors of our forefathers…. We’re the ones who are going to change it.”<br />
<br />
If they were, they would have heard Haneef Auguste, Newark father of four children who attend who attend KIPP, one of the charters targeted by ELC, explain, “I made a conscious decision to send my four children to KIPP New Jersey Schools because I wanted something better for my children and couldn’t afford to move or pay for private school. No one should stand in the way of any child’s chance at a better life, especially when the circumstances in some of our communities are so dire.”<br />
<br />
Before those two hundred parents left the Masonic Hall to head for State Street, Education Commissioner Kimberly Harrington told them, “your voices are being heard.”<br />
<br />
Now if only someone would listen.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-26037612266149361502017-02-24T11:59:00.000-05:002017-02-24T12:00:31.876-05:00Save Our Schools-NJ Leaders In a Juvenile State of MindReasonable people can disagree about whether New Jersey should authorize new public charter schools solely in historically-underserved districts or whether families in all towns should have access to alternative schools. The question becomes blurrier when well-established charter schools request expansion from the State DOE because of parent demand. I’m speaking, of course, of Red Bank Charter School, founded twenty years ago and now requesting a 200-student expansion, and Princeton Charter School, also founded twenty years ago and requesting a 76-student expansion. Both high-performing schools have long waiting lists for entry and long histories of providing students with excellent education.<br />
<br />
A group called “The NJ Latino Coalition” (<a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2016/12/latino-parent-voices-are-ignored-in-red.html">which doesn’t seem to care what Latino parents think</a>) and Save Our Schools-NJ have joined forces to fight expansions of these two charters,<a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2017/02/too-much-fun-to-pass-by-planet.html"> as I wrote last week.</a> SOS-NJ, founded in Princeton by Rutgers Professor Julia Sass Rubin, has a Facebook page with about 112 members who are “administrators” and, thus, can carry on private conversations (although, of course, nothing on social media is “private”). A member of that select group who wishes to remain anonymous shared a recent conversation. I’m just printing a short excerpt with names redacted, except for Rubin’s.<br />
<br />
In reference to a Princeton Charter School parent who resents SOS-NJ’s interference [name redacted], Rubin writes,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is charter parents in all their glory. This particular schmuck really represents what Princeton Charter School is all about -- my child is smarter than your child because she attends Princeton Charter. We have higher test scores (they actually don’t) than the public schools. We are all White and Asian and rich, unlike those poor and Brown kids at the public schools….<br />
The asshole also published my salary on the same blog, presumably to show that I was not worthwhile because I was not a millionaire...school yard bullies. Pathetic!...I blocked another charter parent [name redacted] who is certifiably crazy.</blockquote>
You get the idea. For those who value facts, the NJ DOE database shows that 90 percent of the K-8 <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/pr/1415/80/807540930.pdf">Princeton Charter School</a> students met proficiency metrics in language arts and 88 percent did in math. At Princeton’s 6-8 traditional middle school <a href="http://www.nj.gov/education/pr/1415/21/214255085.pdf">John Witherspoon</a> (where 75 percent of students are White or Asian), 71 percent of student met proficiency metrics in language arts and 63 percent did in math. These are all great scores. So why denigrate multi-sector performance? Beats me.<br />
<br />
Grown-ups ought to act like grown-ups. That’s not happening within the inner sanctum of SOS-NJ.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-10839394164745362512017-02-22T15:37:00.000-05:002017-02-22T19:26:02.249-05:00Is It Time to Show A Little Love For Poor Betsy DeVos?It’s been a Conservative/Tea Party talking point for a while now: get rid of the U.S. Department of Education and.(cuing Pink Floyd here) leave them states alone! While the elimination of the federal bureau charged with establishing policy, collecting data, and enforcing civil rights education laws is still a wish rather than a reality among ardent statists, we’re already seeing signs of the first skid down the slippery slope. Today both the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/us/politics/devos-sessions-transgender-students-rights.html?_r=0"> New York Times</a> and<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-transgender-students-jeff-sessions-betsy-devos-235265"> Politico</a> report that poor Cabinet member Betsy DeVos is viewed within the interior design of the Trump Administration as not much more than a toddler seat off to the side of the grownups’ table.<br />
<br />
Now, I’ve been hard on our new Secretary of Education, largely because of her ignorance of federal protection laws for students with disabilities (<a href="http://newyorkschooltalk.org/2017/01/betsy-devos-trumps-education-department-nominee-makes-nervous-children-like-son-special-needs/">a personal issue for my family</a>) and her allegiance to local control, even in matters of civil rights. But after I read the Times article on the “fight” that “erupted inside the Trump administration, pitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions” against DeVos regarding transgender student rights, I confess that I’m feeling a little bit sorry for her.<br />
<br />
From the Times:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ms. DeVos initially resisted signing off on the order and told President Trump that she was uncomfortable with it, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the internal discussions. The order would reverse the directives put in place last year by the Obama administration to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mr. Sessions, who strongly opposes expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, fought Ms. DeVos on the issue and pressed her to relent because he could not go forward without her consent. The order must come from the Justice and Education Departments. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mr. Trump sided with his attorney general, these Republicans said. And Ms. DeVos, faced with the choice of resigning or defying the president, has agreed to go along. The Justice Department declined to comment on Wednesday.</blockquote>
In other words, DeVos stood up for transgender students, those who identify with the gender that doesn’t match the anatomy they were born with. And she stood up for them against a man who was denied a judgeship because he’s a racist (the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/18/10-things-to-know-about-sen-jeff-sessions-donald-trumps-pick-for-attorney-general/?utm_term=.1931a83d12a8">Washington Post</a> reported that “Sessions used the n-word and joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying he thought they were “okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana”), finds same-sex marriage “<a href="https://www.queerty.com/brief-history-incoming-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-horrific-antigay-record-20161118">very troubling” and “unacceptable,</a>” and is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/five-chilling-ways-senator-jeff-sessions-could-attack-immigrants-as-attorney-general_us_5870022ce4b099cdb0fd2ef7">considered by some</a> to be “one of the most vehemently nativist, anti-immigrant legislators in American history.”<br />
<br />
Caitlin Emma at Politico expands on the same story with some important context. A Republican “familiar with the Trump administrations conversations,”<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
stressed that it's normal for agencies to disagree, but said DeVos has a weakened role. In addition to losing this fight with Sessions, the source said, DeVos appears to have been cut out of the conversation on whether the administration should get rid of or maintain the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was started by Obama and provides protections for young, undocumented immigrants. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"People are beginning to dismiss her and just go to other agencies or the White House where they believe — real or perceived — the real influence is," the Republican said.</blockquote>
In other words, the Department of Education may exist on paper but that’s merely an inconvenience in Trump world. Is this because DeVos flunked her confirmation hearing and was so poorly regarded by Democrats (and unions --- see <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/bradford-teachers-unions-exploited-ed-reform-split-over-devos-while-never-losing-focus">Derrell Bradford</a> on this) that VP Mike Pence had to cast the tiebreaking vote? Is it because she really doesn’t know anything about education policy? Is it because she’s a woman in a man cave? Is it because Trump regards cabinet appointments -- indeed, all appointments except Supreme Court ones -- as mandated distractions from his oligarchy with Steve Bannon?<br />
<br />
You got me. But right now DeVos seems like the least of our problems and, perhaps, due a bit of respect for having the moxie to a make a stand, albeit a timid one, against Jeff Sessions.NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-20691668335034780622017-02-22T09:47:00.000-05:002017-02-22T09:47:20.833-05:00After the Women's March, New Rules, New Energy, and a Renewed Focus on EducationNot long ago, a group of women education bloggers from around the country <a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2017/02/to-be-woman-in-age-of-trump.html">shared their thoughts</a> on what it means to be, raise and educate women in the age of Trump.<br />
<br />
The dialogue stimulated more responses from members of the Education Post network who share their renewed passion for connecting with other women across lines of difference and for ensuring all our children’s educational rights are protected. So we’ve compiled the second round of discussion into a follow-up blog post.<br />
<br />
Listen in:<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson, Chicago’s west suburbs; blogger, <a href="http://educationpost.org/network/sharhonda-knott-dawson/">Education Post</a></b><br />
<br />
Last month, 6 million women followed the instructions of our feminist Queen Beyoncé and got “in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDZJPJV__bQ">formation</a>” in cities around the United States, standing in unity for the rights of all women. Pussy hats everywhere, posters, mothers/daughters/grandmothers, all united to make one statement: Women are not going to be silent while our rights are being trampled.<br />
<br />
But now what? Well, the bad news is that women, of all races, ethnicities, and all political beliefs, are under attack. But that is also the good news. We are ALL being attacked, so there is no need for us to attack one another!<br />
<br />
Here are my rules on how women should proceed after the march:<br />
<br />
1. No more <a href="http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2016/02/about-writing-blackness-race-white-hurt.html">White fragility</a> and no more <a href="https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-womens-tears-and-the-men-who-love-them-twlm/">White women’s tears</a>.<br />
<br />
Dear white women;<br />
<br />
Not hurting your feelings with our truths as women of color takes up too much of our energy. No more criticism sandwiches—two affirmations with one criticism in the middle. Learning from constructive criticism is part of the work. People will let you know about your privilege and your mistakes. Deal with it.<br />
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2. Feminism is for everyone. We may look different, but everyone is in.<br />
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There are a lot of ideas out there about who is a feminist and who isn’t. Take this great debate: Beyoncé vs. bell hooks. Is Beyoncé really a feminist? This is another giant time suck that saps our energy for the real fights before us.<br />
<br />
If someone is working towards the equality of women, let them do that. This isn’t the time to say who’s really a feminist and who’s not. Our circle is open.<br />
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3. No slut-shaming or prudent praising.<br />
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We’re not here to talk about who is dressing appropriately. We’re not here to attack Melania Trump about nude modeling. We’re not here to praise Michelle Obama for dressing conservatively. If you are an adult making adult decisions about your life, you are a woman. You are a grown woman who can wear whatever you want. Our dress and our extracurricular activities are irrelevant to our worthiness. Whether you are married or how you got your children is irrelevant to feminism. Mind your business.<br />
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4. Conserve your energy. Pick a battle or two and give your full energy and talent there.<br />
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There is a <a href="https://www.marchforscience.com/">March for Science</a> coming up in on Earth Day in April. I won’t be there. I care, but that’s not my area! I can’t work on it all. My areas would be immigration and educational opportunities for young women. I’m a mother, so I’m working a lot with younger girls. On MLK Day this year, I organized a free screening of “Hidden Figures” that brought out 300 mothers and daughters. That’s the kind of thing I can work on.<br />
<br />
5. Network. Bbe sure to connect women who have similar interests or are doing similar actions together.<br />
<br />
Thanks to social media, we are in an unprecedented age for networking. That needs to happen more intentionally. For example, criminal justice is not my area, but I know women who are working with women in prisons, on re-entry and on stopping mass incarcerations. I try to connect them to each other.<br />
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6. No mom shaming. Over. Home, work, helicopter, free-range, whatever mom.<br />
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We don't have time for nonsensical arguments. Every type of mom is getting her butt kicked. If there’s a type of mom you don’t like, just leave them alone! We’re all trying our hardest. Let’s try to assume every form of mothering is valid. Again, find your tribe and your issues and work on those.<br />
<br />
7. Self-care.<br />
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This probably should be number one. If you aren't healthy, then you can't help anyone else. Take your meds, get enough sleep, don't binge on jelly beans every time #45 does or says something stupid.<br />
<br />
8. Remember, study and honor our foremothers.<br />
<br />
Use their strategies, strength, and spirit to guide you through this fight. My grandmother, Saretha, had a fifth-grade education and had to pick cotton in the segregated South in the face of health challenges. She passed, but I feel her spirit with me. Knowing the stories of our mothers and grandmothers—knowing our legacies—is vital in doing the work today. They were no smarter, no braver than we are now. They were just willing to do it.<br />
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9. Intersectionality is 101.<br />
<br />
When fighting for women's rights, you must include the rights of all women. Wage equality is one, but violence towards trans women is another, immigration and breaking up of families, are all part of the women's agenda.<br />
<br />
10. Have lots of face time with the women in your life and community.<br />
<br />
You shouldn’t be getting your ideas about humanity solely from the Internet. Organizing, protesting, strategizing around issues are important, but so is having coffee or a drink after work. So are play dates and Beyoncé Lemonade binges. Connecting with women in real life is soul medicine.<br />
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<br />
<b>Katelyn Silva, Providence; blogger,<a href="http://educationpost.org/network/katelyn-silva/"> Education Post</a></b><br />
<br />
This was my first march and I wasn’t missing it. I drove by myself from Rhode Island to D.C., where I stayed with a doctor passionate about protecting women’s reproductive rights. Joining us was a social worker from Seattle who a year earlier had battled not one cancer, but two. She’s 34. The Affordable Care Act saved her life. Rounding out our foursome was a New Yorker who works for a non-profit that resettles refugee families in the United States and around the world. Clearly, the Trump administration had left her deeply shaken.<br />
<br />
I marched because I am a feminist. I wear that moniker with pride. I understand “feminism” is fraught for some because the movement has not been as inclusive as it should be. However, the basics of the definition of a feminist are simple in my view. A feminist is someone who believes a woman is deserving of the same rights and opportunities as a man. Period.<br />
<br />
There is nothing controversial about every woman—and man—accepting the label “feminist” happily. In its purest form, it denigrates no one, and includes everyone. <br />
<br />
I marched for my daughter. I marched for yours, too, even if you didn’t feel you wanted me to. I also marched for your sons. Because a world where women are treated fairly is a better world for everyone, not just socially, but economically.<br />
<br />
I bristle at the suggestion that marchers were lewd, aggressive, or profane. Give me 500,000 to 1 million people, and I can surely find you an outlier or two to flash on the evening news. In fact, what moved me the most about my experience in D.C. was the decency of it all.<br />
<br />
Everyone was so darn nice. The sheer number of human beings all in one place, not just peacefully co-existing, but harmoniously helping one another, was one of the most moving elements of the day. When you spend eight to 10 hours shoulder-to-shoulder with other bodies who are tired, thirsty, and probably have to pee, you don’t expect all the lovely niceties. You don’t expect the crowds to part with sympathy when a woman yells she has to throw up and three people to bring her water, or the constant smiling. Yet they were there. It was a life-giving experience, even for an introvert like myself.<br />
<br />
Did the Women’s March have its flaws? Of course. Will it solve all of America’s problems? Of course not. I’m too old to think anything is perfect. But if we allow perfect to be the enemy of the good, we will never have progress.<br />
<br />
What the Women’s March did accomplish, however, matters. It may have been the largest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history. That’s remarkable. It showed the world that many American women (and men) are not taking the Trump administration lying down. It sparked a flame that I’m betting isn’t going out anytime soon.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Valentina Korkes, Ann Arbor, Chief of Staff, <a href="http://educationpost.org/network/valentina-korkes/">Education Post</a></b><br />
<br />
Since Election Day, I’ve really struggled with both my role in our “new” world and with the role that education plays in it. Education was far from a hot topic throughout the campaign and didn’t garner much attention after the election was over until closer to Betsy DeVos’s confirmation hearings.<br />
<br />
What did gain attention, however, were a number of issues near and dear to my heart -- immigration, reproductive rights, civil rights, the environment -- all for very good reason. The president made it his mission during his first week in office to show the American people that he is intent on fulfilling all of his campaign promises.<br />
<br />
Let me tell you, I was ready to jump ship. I was ready to go finish to law school and become an immigration attorney. I signed up for every reproductive rights job bank there is. I joined every newsletter, email and text notification, and Facebook group out there in the hopes that I’d find a position that would allow be to be a part of the resistance full-time.<br />
<br />
I talked to my parents, my colleagues, my mentors -- pretty much anyone who would listen, honestly -- and tried to learn what it’s like to be against every single thing that the current president stands for. And even though these are folks who have been around through a few Republican presidencies, they didn’t have much advice for me. The Bushes and Reagan don’t really hold a candle to Trump.<br />
<br />
But eventually, after all that time and effort, I finally realized: education might not Trump’s #1 priority, but he’s going to come around to it eventually -- and in fact, he’s already making some moves on it. His words and actions are already having an impact on our students. I want to be here to resist anything I find unacceptable.<br />
<br />
When he comes for refugee students, I’ll be ready. When he comes for sex education, I’ll be ready. When he comes for on-campus rape, discipline, the Office of Civil Rights, LGBTQ students, disabled students, I’ll be ready. NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8618709929318397424.post-89189043265510689732017-02-17T16:23:00.000-05:002017-02-19T11:17:00.372-05:00Too Much Fun to Pass By: Planet Princeton Trips Up Public School Choice Opponent Julia Sass Rubin <a href="https://planetprinceton.com/">Planet Princeton</a>, a highly-regarded news platform run by former Star-Ledger journalist Krystal Knapp, is in a Facebook contretemps with Julia Sass Rubin, founder of Save our Schools-NJ, the state's anti-charter/anti-accountability organization. The online paper has an <a href="https://planetprinceton.com/2017/02/17/latino-coalition-of-nj-files-federal-civil-rights-complaint-against-princeton-charter-school/">article on a civil rights complaint </a>filed by the NJ Latino Coalition, the same group that filed the same complaint against Red Bank Charter School, claiming that the public charters enroll disproportionately low numbers of Latino students.<br />
<br />
I covered the Red Bank complaint <a href="http://njleftbehind.blogspot.com/2016/12/latino-parent-voices-are-ignored-in-red.html">here</a>, which was filed with eager assistance from NJEA. At the time several Latino parents commented on the complaint:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 1em 20px;">
<i><br />Felipa Pastrana, a Mexican immigrant who has twin daughters in second grade at Red Bank Charter School, said “I want it to be known to the entire Red Bank community that the many Latino parents at Red Bank Charter School fully support the school.”</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 1em 20px;">
<i> Lourdes Hernandez, who moved from Veracruz, Mexico, to Red Bank 16 years ago, said she “is thrilled with the education her four children received at Red Bank Charter School.”</i></blockquote>
<br />
The Princeton civil rights complaint, Knapp reports, is based on the claim that <a href="http://pcs.k12.nj.us/">Princeton Charter School</a> (PCS), one of the first charters established in New Jersey after the passage of the 1995 charter school law, is segregated by race, income, special needs, and English Language Learners. White students are proportionately represented and the K-8 school has a higher percentage of Asian students than the traditional district. Students enroll through a random lottery. In December PCS petitioned the state to allow an expansion of 76 students from its current 350 and committed to change the random lottery to a weighted one in order to shift enrollment demographics to reflect Princeton's student body. However, this petition sparked blowback because the district is concerned about the fiscal toll of tuition payments. which this year came to <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/finance/fp/ufb/2016/reports/21/4255/UFB17_4255.pdf">$3,210,172</a>.<br />
<br />
According to the latest figures available from the NJ DOE's <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/guide/2016/district.shtml">Taxpayers Guide to Education Spending</a>, the annual cost per pupil in the traditional district is <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/education/csg/16/csg.pl">$24,634</a> and the annual cost per pupil at PCS is <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/education/csg/16/csg.pl?string=dist_code7540&maxhits=650">$20,737</a>. Both are well above what the state considers "adequacy." Both the <a href="http://www.nj.gov/education/pr/1415/21/214255050.pdf">district </a>and the <a href="http://www.nj.gov/education/pr/1415/80/807540930.pdf">charter</a> have excellent student outcomes, by the way. This, after all, is Princeton, where 30% of households have <a href="http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/new_jersey/princeton">incomes over $200K </a>and the median sales price for homes is $787K.<br />
<br />
Larry Patton, head of PCS, called the complaint "baseless" and noted that the Latino Coalition never bothered to speak to PCS representatives or parents. Echoes of Red Bank, right?<br />
<br />
The factual and fair Princeton Planet article enraged Ms. Rubin, who is deeply involved in the fight against PCS. She is also a spokesperson for a new group called "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/KeepPPSStrong/?fref=nf">Keep PPS Strong</a>." The Facebook page urges readers to click on<a href="http://www.princetonk12.org/PCS_Proposed_Expansion/057B9C31-000F50D3.5/Superintendent%27s%20Forum%20on%20PCS%20-%201.12.17.pdf"> a presentation</a> given at a Superintendent's Forum where Ms. Rubin played a starring role. Even Phil Murphy, gubernatorial shoo-in endorsed by NJEA before other candidates even filed for candidacy, weighed in, saying, "I don't live here but based on what I know, I'm dead set against the expansion of the Princeton Charter. It reminds me of the debate we had in Red Bank ... or the debate you may have noticed in Montclair. It does not have local support as far as I can tell and without local support I don't think there is a rationale to pursue it."<br />
<br />
Perhaps our governor-in-waiting should first speak to the parents on PCS's waiting list.<br />
<br />
(Murphy, who lives in Red Bank* [see correction below], sends his kids to private schools. He regularly insists that he would fully fund the state's 2008 funding formula, a mathematical impossibility that<a href="http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/2017/02/sfra-was-never-fully-funded.html"> no governor has ever overcome</a>. Murphy, apparently, is never one to let <a href="http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/2016/08/phil-murphy-doesnt-understand-state-aid.html">facts get in his way</a>. Tip of the hat here to Jeff Bennett at <a href="http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/">NJ Education Aid</a>.)<br />
<br />
Read the whole <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PlanetPrinceton/">Facebook exchange</a> at your leisure, but here are a few excerpts.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a aria-controls="js_15" aria-describedby="js_16" aria-haspopup="true" class=" UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100002178610698&extragetparams=%7B%22is_public%22%3Atrue%2C%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/jlsrubin?fref=ufi&rc=p" id="js_18" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Julia Sass Rubin</a></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Krystal, you are making statements about me in this article for which you have no data . Do you feel comfortable standing by those statements in a court of law or would you prefer to stick to the truth and modify your unsubstantiated statements?</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a aria-controls="js_1b" aria-describedby="js_1c" aria-haspopup="true" class=" UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=109576822393961&extragetparams=%7B%22is_public%22%3Atrue%2C%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/PlanetPrinceton/?rc=p" id="js_1g" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold;">Planet Princeton</a></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have not continuously slandered Julia Sass Rubin. Her charts are used by the group in the complaint. Regardless of what one thinks, we take no position on the charter school expansion and have no opinion, because that is not our job. It is not our j</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ob to write stories that are slanted in favor of the opposition or the expansion. It is up to readers to decide what they think on the issues. And we will continue to report even if threatened with legal action, and we will defend our reporting in court. We are sorry if opponents of the charter school are angry that our stories do not slant in support of their position, but it is our job to remain neutral.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a aria-controls="js_15" aria-describedby="js_16" aria-haspopup="true" class=" UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100002178610698&extragetparams=%7B%22is_public%22%3Atrue%2C%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/jlsrubin?fref=ufi&rc=p" id="js_17" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold;">Julia Sass Rubin</a></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My charts are all on the Princeton Public Schools website where anyone can access them. Your article makes it sound like I created the charts for the complaint. You also claim I am opposed to charter schools with absolutely no substantiation. And you </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">claim that I founded Save Our Schools, which was founded by a number of people and is called Save Our Schools NJ. I think you brought me into the story at the Princeton Charter School's request. They have been launching an all out war against me, even though my taxes pay for their salaries, and you have been a very willing participant. Please correct your article so that it is based on things you can substantiate. That is what journalism is supposed to be.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a aria-controls="js_1b" aria-describedby="js_1c" aria-haspopup="true" class=" UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=109576822393961&extragetparams=%7B%22is_public%22%3Atrue%2C%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/PlanetPrinceton/?rc=p" id="js_1i" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold;">Planet Princeton</a></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No, Julia, we did not bring you into the story at the Charter School's request, contrary to what you think. And that is your perception that the story makes it sound like you created the charts for the complaint. We did not intend to make it sound that way. Sorry if we were mistaken that you don't oppose charter schools. Are you saying you support charter schools?</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a aria-controls="js_15" aria-describedby="js_16" aria-haspopup="true" class=" UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100002178610698&extragetparams=%7B%22is_public%22%3Atrue%2C%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/jlsrubin?fref=ufi&rc=p" id="js_1j" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold;">ulia Sass Rubin</a></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My position on charter schools is irrelevant for this story. What I would like to know is why you brought me into the story at all, Krystal?</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a class=" UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=109576822393961&extragetparams=%7B%22is_public%22%3Atrue%2C%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/PlanetPrinceton/?rc=p" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Planet Princeton</a></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because people should know the source of the charts. And your position on charters is relevant to stories on charter schools when your data is being used.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a class=" UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=109576822393961&extragetparams=%7B%22is_public%22%3Atrue%2C%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/PlanetPrinceton/?rc=p" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Planet Princeton</a></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UFICommentBody" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The complaint uses your charts from the PPS Strong website, and you are one of the founders of Save Our Schools and those are facts. The sentence is not an attack, it is stating facts and we do not report on behalf of the charter school.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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You go, Planet Princeton. Score one for impartial journalism!<br />
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*Correction: Phil Murphy does not live in Red Bank. He lives in Middletown on a 6-acre riverfront estate with an estimated value of $9.6 million.<br />
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<br />NJ Left Behindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739701636089453850noreply@blogger.com18