NJ Education Report

Here’s the beginning: 

“All is flux, nothing stays still,” said Plato, but you’d never know that in Camden. It’s still the worst school system in New Jersey despite decades of strategic plans and revolving superintendents and money and good intentions. 

Now Mastery Charter Schools, based in Philadelphia, has had applications approved to open two new charters in Camden, right across the Delaware River. Yesterday Gov. Christie attended a ground-breaking ceremony for another approved Camden applicant, the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy.

In a recent editorial in the Courier Post, Camden Education Association’s Keith Benson, who runs public relations for the teachers’ union, “implores” readers to “not be taken by what the traveling charter school salesmen were selling, or by what you have been told about the ineffectiveness of public schools.” He continues, “Do not celebrate the arrival of people trying to profit from you having fewer rights. Don’t be happy with getting charter schools that were owed to the community as true public schools. And do not support a charter education agenda that is good enough for poor black and brown children, but not for white communities.”

Is Mastery a shadowy conspiracy sponsoring “traveling charter school salesmen” eager to profit from the seizure of community rights? Is Mastery’s expansion to Camden cause for celebration or resentment?

Read the rest here.