Citizens in Camden, New Jersey are getting ready to vote in a school board election after years of state takeover that has denied them any voice in their schools. Will this election be an opportunity for local voices to be heard?
City residents will vote to fill three vacant seats for which nine candidates are running. The candidates are focusing on such goals as financial accountability, strengthening the culture of the district, recruiting a diverse workforce, and supporting mental wellbeing of students—any one of which would be a welcome change.
Three candidates appear on the Education for Everyone ticket, backed by the Camden City (and Camden County) Democratic Committee. Three others appear on the Camden Votes ticket backed by a grassroots coalition made up of parents and community activists.
What distinguishes the two groups of candidates is that Education for Everyone is backed by a local Democratic Party committee that has supported a state financial takeover of the city, the dissolution of city police, the takeover of schools, and the disenfranchising of Camden voters. The Camden Votes ticket is backed and supported by the parents and community advocates who fought to ensure that that parents would vote on the designation of its school board.
Camden City residents send their children to schools where they cannot elected the people that govern them.
Since 2013, the Camden City School District has operated under a state takeover, but prior to that Camden residents had only an “indirect” say in school governance. School board members were appointed by the mayor. After the takeover, the school board changed from a governing body to an advisory body.
As a result, Camden City residents send their children to schools where they cannot elected the people that govern them, and even if they could, the board is without the power to govern itself.
And the problem has deep roots. In 2002, Camden experienced a municipal takeover of government by the state. Residents had no control over the new city leader—a chief operating officer and previous mayor of the city—with a sketchy reputation with residents—who was appointed by then-governor Jim McGreevey.
Camden regained municipal control in 2010, but city finances were so decimated that the city laid off over 100 police officers in 2011 and then disbanded their police force in 2012. Residents were given no say in the regionalization of their police department, a decision backed up by a New Jersey Superior Court ruling.
Camden residents have experienced voter suppression at the hands of the state. Yet the argument from city and state officials has always been that these decisions are with the residents’ best interest at heart. How can that be when those residents have their opportunities to have a voice is repeatedly taken away? It’s racist public policy in the form of municipal paternalism.
Camden is a city that is predominantly Black and Latinx. State takeovers happen disproportionately in communities of color, predominantly Black school districts are more likely to be taken over, and takeovers are more likely to remove elected school boards.
The act that allowed for the municipal takeover of Camden was amended in 2010 to require a city vote in 2014 as to whether or not residents wanted to elect its school board. But the Camden City School District, then under the control of the state of New Jersey and administered by then superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard, subsequently argued in court that a vote for school board of education designation was not required under the Quality Single Accountability Continuum Act—an act that allows the state to take over troubled school districts.
However, in 2018 a three-judge appellate court ruled in favor of Camden residents, saying that that law that governs state takeovers “is clear in granting Camden citizens the right to a school district classification vote.” But the same three judges also ruled the school board would continue to serve as an advisory body while the city remains under state control.
The city’s mayor backed a successful 2018 ballot measure to keep school board members appointed by the board.
While research on mayoral control and mayoral appointed boards is limited and inconclusive, a study by the Institute on Education Law and Policy at Rutgers University-Newark found that mayoral control does have some benefits (public attention to education, increased funding, and stability), but that there is “no conclusive evidence that governance changes increase achievement.”
Although next week’s vote is a victory for Camden residents, the elephant in the room remains. When will Camden residents receive full control of its schools? That can only happen when the board of education becomes once again a governing board. Public education in Camden is comprised of traditional public schools and renaissance charter schools. An elected board would likely decide the fate of those schools—specifically, whether to phase out traditional public schools via the Urban Hope Act or halt the growth of renaissance schools in the city.
But damage has been done in Camden. People often lament the low voter turnout in the city. If you take away the vote of the people often enough, you can generate a political nihilism amongst them.