State takeovers of municipal school districts are a commonly used tactic by policymakers who say they want to improve the education of black and brown children. State takeovers of local schools have taken place in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Louisiana, and such efforts are being considered in California and Texas. My home state of New Jersey has a particularly long history of state takeovers.
Generally, during state takeovers the locally elected school board is dissolved, the superintendent is often deposed or rendered powerless, and a state-appointed board or state-hired consultant or management firm rules with impunity. Takeovers have also been used to impose charter schools and other forms of school privatization.
But do state takeovers actually improve academic performance of students of color? Studies showing positive results have been based solely or predominantly on improvements in student scores on standardized tests, even though critics argue that the overreliance on test scores isn’t a guarantee of academic success or failure.
The latest empirically-based justification for takeover comes from the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes CREDO) at Stanford University. Recently, CREDO released a study first comparing the academic performance of Camden City students to the state average. Within the city, researchers measured the academic performance of charter school students (including those enrolled in the state’s “renaissance” charters) against that of public school students.
CREDO, similarly to the New Jersey Department of Education, defines academic performance as how much academic growth students make from one year to the next. Growth for an individual student is determined by comparing the change in his or her PARCC achievement from one year to the next to the student’s “academic peers” (all other students in the state who had similar historical test results).
Regarding the first comparison, CREDO’s study showed that students in Camden exhibited weaker growth gains compared to the state average. Regarding the second comparison, the study showed that Camden students in charter schools (local charter operators and renaissance schools) exhibited stronger growth than Camden students in traditional public schools. This was true across genders, racial groups, and other subgroupings designated within the study.
Commercially produced standardized tests have been shown to be biased by social-class, ethnic and other cultural differences.
It is well established that standardized testing, like PARCC, has a history of racial and cultural bias. PARCC is developed by Pearson Education, Inc.; a corporation guilty of publishing textbooks that whitewash slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Commercially produced standardized tests have also been shown to be biased by social-class, ethnic and other cultural differences and encourage the use of threats, bribes and other extrinsic motivators to raise scores.
I’ve argued previously that while Camden City charter schools (local charter operators and renaissance schools) may have outperformed traditional public schools in both reading and math exams, those charter schools also suspend more students than do the traditional public schools. Charter schools in Camden, particularly renaissance operators, who employ no-excuses style tactics, are likely able to increase test scores while perpetuating the problem of over-suspending black and brown students.
Also, left out of the CREDO study is the teacher and administrator composition of traditional public and charter schools in Camden. That matters because research has shown that students perform better academically when they are taught by a teacher of the same race; this is true for black students and black male youth particularly. For the years CREDO extracted its data (2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17), not only did charter schools have a higher percentage of white teachers each year than did traditional public schools, but the percentage of white teachers in charter schools increased.
So what does this study tell us? According to news headlines, the study tells us that renaissance and charter schools outperform public schools in Camden. But a more important question is what the study fails to tell us; the story behind the numbers. We need to aim for the academic achievement of all Camden City students—some might add, at any cost.
When studies like these are released, without mentioning the unevenness of the results, especially for children of color, it prompts me to question the authors’ intentions. Certainly, the purpose of the CREDO study was to display the academic performance of Camden City students in relation to the average student in the state and within Camden City.
However, the argument can be made that this study is divisive; that it pits parents and advocates against each other in the name of addressing a broken system of education. Sure, the study provides parents with a transparent picture of which schools perform better, but bottom line, students at all Camden City students, public and charter, showed weaker gains than those across the state. Why do a study that focuses on a lesser evil, rather than on eradicating the evil itself?
All Camden schools have work to do on behalf of black and brown children. Even with a state takeover and privatizing schools, Camden students continue to underperform academically in comparison to the state average. Renaissance operators such as KIPP, Mastery Charter School and Uncommon Schools need to do better. I reject their no-excuses philosophy and am disappointed that black men are sought after to welcome students at the start of the year, but not sustained as teachers in classrooms year-round.
Predominantly white school districts have yet to experience the same fate—no matter how troubled their districts may be.
Also, the lack of local control over school governance is an example of institutional racism in the form of a political mechanism to take power from black and brown residents in the education of their children. Predominantly white school districts have yet to experience the same fate—no matter how troubled their districts may be. The majority of school districts taken over by state governments are led and populated by African Americans.
The Camden City School District has long been in need of improvement. Prior to school privatization, twenty-three of twenty-six Camden schools were listed as priority schools by the state department of education while under the leadership of a superintendent known for her absenteeism. The superintendent before that had to resign due to a cheating scandal and unauthorized bonuses. All the while, Camden students were underperforming academically in comparison to the state student average. The response of the state of New Jersey was a takeover of the district and a push for school privatization.
The truth is that in New Jersey, the state takeover hasn't worked. In Camden, an education in a charter school is below average. Nationally, standardized testing as the primary indicator of growth is culturally biased and inaccurate. CREDO’s report says none of that. Maybe someone should write a study as to why.