NJ Education Report

Peter:
Talk to me a little bit about how you’re balancing the charter growth and the need to improve the district schools. 

Chris Cerf:
This issue has been deeply misunderstood by everybody, proponents and opponents of charter schools. I have a very simple measure here that goes back to where this conversation began. Does every child who lives in Newark have access to a free, quality public education? That does not make me either a proponent or an opponent of charter schools. It makes me an opponent of bad schools and a proponent of good schools. 

When I say public, I mean a school that is open to all. We’ll give a pass to the magnets, but a school that is open to all—free, does not charge tuition, that is subject to a public authority, that has democratic accountability. That definition includes traditional public schools, vocational schools and charter schools. 

So, again, I would very much like to get everybody out of the box of public schools versus charters and get everybody focusing on whether it is a great, free, public school, and whether parents have an equal opportunity to access them.