Here’s William Librera, NJ Commissioner of Education from 2002-2005 and current Executive Director of Rutgers Institute to Improve Student Achievement, reflecting on his tenure as head of the DOE in today’s NJ Spotlight:
I regret I was not as successful as I wanted to be in changing the nature of the discussion away from charters vs. public schools as we now define it, which I think is unfortunate, and instead to emphasize public school choice, because that is what we need. Public school choice can go beyond charters, it is not synonymous, and given the fact we have stacked the deck against charters has not helped us expand the opportunities. You can do that inside districts. It’s good for teachers, its good for kids, and it’s good for parents as well.
Five years (and three commissioners) later, and we’re still unable to let go of anti-charter fervor and embrace public school choice which, as Librera points out, would benefit kids, families, and teachers.
Commissioner Librera has a history of being ahead of his time – he’s the official responsible for the original implementation of the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program and author of the evaluation that pleaded for its expansion. He also wrote a memo in May 2005 that declared that the Special Review Assessment (SRA)“hurts the very students we seek to help, and it must be replaced.” Newbies may not recall that the SRA, the old alternative assessment for 11th graders that condoned high school graduation with no accountability, represented one of NJ’s most flagrant pretenses of educational success.
It took the educational establishment a few more years before it owned up to the abuses of the SRA and the necessity for expanding interdistrict choice. We’re still flailing within the false dichotomy of charter vs. public schools, but maybe that too is a matter of time.
