COMMENTARY: It’s Time for Murphy to Take Off His MAGA Hat

Gov. Phil Murphy says he supports “giving our children the education they need to succeed in a 21st century economy.”

Except he doesn’t. If he did, he would place the needs of children over politics and wishful thinking. 

Yet, as Tom Moran pointed out yesterday, during the four years of Murphy’s first term he has denied “nearly two-thirds of the requested expansions [of public charters] and granted just one new license.”

Why has Murphy (through his dysfunctional Department of Education) given a thumbs-down to expansion plans of high-achieving schools like Newark’s North Star Academy, a public charter network where 75% of students meet state expectations in reading and 65% meet expectations in math, as opposed to the traditional district’s record of 36% and 26% respectively? (86% of North Star’s students are economically-disadvantaged, 10 points higher than district schools.)

Because, says Moran, Murphy cowers at the power of the leaders of the state teachers union and apes their animosity towards public charter schools in low-achieving districts like Trenton, Camden, and Newark. To wit: despite 3,500 students on the charter waitlists in Newark, Murphy not only turned down North Star’s request but last week turned down an expansion proposal for Phillips Academy, another high-performing Newark public charter. 

Or maybe he’s got a little bit of Trump in him.

Let me explain: When people wear caps that say “Make America Great Again,” they’re protesting a national conversation about the ways in which the country has failed to acknowledge deep-seated flaws, whether we’re talking about systemic racism or the fact that, on an international assessment 19% of American 15-year-olds have difficulty with basic aspects of reading or (closer to home) that at Newark’s Malcolm X Shabazz High School 3% of students are proficient in math.

Those MAGA hats speak to a nostalgia for national pride, for a loyalty to the pretense (as John Winthrop sermonized in 1630 and Ronald Reagan reiterated 350 years later) that America is a shining “city on a hill,” a beacon for goodness and strength. Yet in the world of public education through these two pandemic years, many parents who once swore by that luminosity see the gloom as traditional schools stumble to adjust to conditions, to scale up new programs, to tap into an innovative lode that could reduce the enormous learning losses experienced by students, especially those whose parents can’t afford tutors and micro-pods.

When Murphy rejects requests for charter expansions, he’s putting on a hat that signifies a denial of the reality faced by parents and children in cities like Newark, a stubborn insistence that things are just great the way they are. Malcolm X Shabazz High School is great again! We’re a shining city on a hill!

The cost of his nostalgia is enormous.

“Politics are trumping what’s best for students,” says Harry Lee of the New Jersey Public Charter School Association. “It’s disappointing, extremely disappointing.”

“Murphy’s track record was already spotty, and if these first weeks of the second term is any indication, it’s certainly not getting better,” says Kyle Rosenkranz, CEO of NJ Children’s Foundation, an advocacy group that works closely with charters. “It’s throwing the Newark charter movement into disarray.”

Look, maybe Murphy’s predilection for impeding the growth of schools that parents want has nothing to do with Trump. Maybe it’s just. as Moran says, about the gushing spigot of cash from NJEA into his coffers.

But this is a really bad time to disregard parents who have become accustomed to making choices about the shape of their children’s education. COVID-19 has made school choice advocates of us all, ripping away the blinders and allowing us to see right into classrooms through a laptop screen, by giving us options (for a period of time) between in-school learning and virtual learning. by forcing hard questions about how much learning actually goes on in classrooms.

Moran concludes, 

What’s missing is a governor who is willing to lead, to spend some political capital on these kids, even if it means offending his friends at the union. Our skittish governor prefers to skate by and avoid talking about it. 

But here’s the thing: parents are talking about it because they know our school system isn’t so shiny and sacred. A recent national poll found that 81% of parents are concerned about the quality of their children’s education (an astounding jump) and 48% are “very concerned.” There has been a 13% drop in kindergarten enrollment over the last two years, the largest in two decades. In Newark specifically, a poll last month showed that 62% of voters believe that public charter schools are “an important part of the public school landscape,” that “charter schools help, not harm, public education in the city,” and–-by a two-to-one margin—voters prefer to cast their ballots for mayoral candidates who “support the expansion of charter schools.”

Are there problems to be solved? Sure; Moran notes the lower numbers of special education students and English Language Learners educated in Newark charters (although charters have doubled their enrollments of students with disabilities and they cluster in wards that are almost entirely African-American).

But Murphy doesn’t appear to want to solve the problems or hear the demands of parents.

In a hopeful sign, the State Legislature may be leaving Murphy behind. The new Chair of the Senate Education Committee, Vin Gopal, says he wants to hold hearings this year so schools like North Star are allowed to abide by parent wishes:

“In places like Newark and Camden, where you have charters dramatically outperforming district schools, parents should have a choice,” says Gopal. “We need to look to expand charters in places where the public system is not getting its act together. The good charters should be rewarded.”

Indeed, they should, although this is a case where the charter’s “reward” goes to Newark families who care more about their children’s education than sophistry and politics.

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