Sadly, school closure announcements in the city of Camden, New Jersey, are all too common. Currently three schools—Cooper’s Poynt Family School, Ulysses S. Wiggins Family School, and Harry C. Sharp Elementary School—are slated to be closed.
While the goal of these closures among school district officials and policymakers is to improve the educational opportunities of Camden children, the current course for achieving that goal is the wrong one. It was said previously by then-governor Chris Christie and former Camden mayor Dana Redd that a takeover of the school district would put the city on the right path, but research shows that school district takeovers don’t improve school districts.
In New Jersey, as well as in other states, a state takeover of a public school district is when the state executive branch takes control of academic, administrative and financial functions of that district.The local school board becomes an advisory board and the state selects the superintendent.
Camden is one of four school districts in New Jersey that were previously or are currently under state control.
What takeovers do, however, is take away autonomy from voters to decide how their districts will function.
What takeovers do, however, is take away autonomy from voters to decide how their districts will function. It is no coincidence that takeovers tend to happen in Black and brown communities; I guess Camden residents should be happy with winning back the ability to elect the school district advisory board.
It was said that the Urban Hope Act, a statewide bill from 2012 that allows certain public school districts to form contracts with nonprofit entities like charter management organizations, would put Camden on the right path, but it hasn’t. Local advocates of the bill often extol data showing that charters in the city outperform district schools. But at what cost?
Charter schools have higher percentages of white teachers, despite evidence of the importance of students having teachers of the same race. The Camden City School District has the fifth highest percentage of Black teachers in the state of New Jersey among public school districts. And that matters for Black students.
But also, charter schools in the city suspend students more often than public schools in the district.
So-called Reformers and charter advocates speak of the need for competition. But where’s the competition when you close the only neighborhood district school in a community of charter schools, as is the case with Cooper’s Poynt School in North Camden? What “choice” do parents have in this community other than to bus their children outside of their neighborhood?
If this sort of “competition” is so good, why don’t I see it in predominantly white neighborhoods?
If this sort of “competition” is so good, why don’t I see it in predominantly white neighborhoods? My guess is the state would never dare take the autonomy from white people as to how and where their children are educated, even though Black and Afro-Latinx folks aren’t extended that right.
The Urban Hope Act was branded as the mechanism to improve education in Camden, but all it signaled was a changing of the guard. The state of New Jersey effectively gave away Camden schools to charter management organizations. In doing so, the state has put the Camden City School District in a precarious position. It is no surprise, then, that it was announced in November that more schools will soon close. And I suspect even more school closures will follow; the handwriting is on the wall.
When state lawmakers decided in 2002 that the city couldn’t handle its own affairs as a municipality, Camden was taken over by the state. When it was said that residents were out of control, the police department was replaced, against the will of the people. Since 2014, and up to today, Camden schools are being replaced with privately operated schools with little to no local input.
There are some that believe that an all-charter district is a better alternative to a traditional public system. Yet the city of New Orleans, where public schools were replaced by charters in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is an example of why this is a bad idea.
You don’t support students by closing their schools; you support them by improving those schools.
Certainly, Camden public schools have challenges and areas to improve upon. But taking away the opportunity of the residents and their school to build on the hard work of educators and students is a slap in the face to the educators, students, and families of Camden.
You don’t support students by closing their schools; you support them by improving those schools. Anything less is an evasion of the state’s duty to educate Black and Latinx children.