How do we win Local Control?
When I joined the organization I work for back in October, it was explained to me that the backbone of the education justice campaign here in Camden is local control, meaning the return of power to elect a Superintendent and Board of Education, which the city lost in 2013. Okay, yes, we can win it! A long-term goal of course, but a great point of agitation and surely something we can achieve by putting enough pressure on the right people.
So back then I knew very little about state takeovers. I spent my formative young adult years in Massachusetts and admittedly did not keep up with New Jersey policies and practices. I was familiar with the Abbott case and its related districts since my mother teaches in one, I guess I knew about Paterson and Newark and Jersey City, and I probably heard it on the news when Camden was taken over. I never gave it much thought; it was outside my scope.
Now the issue is very much in my scope, so I’ll tell what I know. In 1987, New Jersey became the first state to enact state takeover legislation, meaning that if the state deemed a school district to be failing, they could step in and take control of finances and operations until test scores improved or something. Sounds like a bit much, right? I’m not exaggerating though! Here it is a bit more formally, directly from the NJ Department of Education website:
“This law, commonly known as the ‘state-operation law,’ specifies that districts that fail to provide a ‘thorough and efficient system of education’ to their students may be taken over by the Department of Education for a minimum of five years. The criteria for becoming a state-operated school district in New Jersey are characterized by a district's ‘unwillingness or inability’ to meet the state certification standards, which consist of a series of performance and quality control benchmarks frequently referred to as "monitoring indicators." These indicators assess a variety of district-level performance issues, such as student performance on state standardized tests, student attendance and dropout rates, the condition of school facilities, and school-level planning requirements, among others. Districts that continually fail to meet these indicators are candidates for state-operation.”
A minimum of five years has turned into twenty eight years for Jersey City, twenty six for Patterson, and twenty two for Newark, the original three “takeover” districts. So far, this year marks the fourth for Camden, so legally it must endure at least another year.* But without a legislated maximum length of stay, who’s to say that Camden won’t end up just like it’s sister cities in the North? I don’t have an answer to that question, but I can unpack it a bit, and I’ll begin (and likely end) with the indicators and assessment of state-operated school districts.
Every public school district in New Jersey is subject to the triennial NJ Quality Single Accountability Continuum (QSAC), which comprises five areas of evaluation: instruction and program, personnel, operations, fiscal management and governance. A score of 80% or higher in any area is considered passing, and a score of 50%-79% necessitates an improvement plan for the area(s) in which the score was received. If a district receives a score lower than 50% in any area, the State Commissioner of Education authorizes an in-depth review, and the district becomes eligible for state-intervention. In 2012, Camden City School District scored 9% in instruction and program, 19% in personnel, 47% in operations, 79% in fiscal management and 33% in governance. The following year, the State seized the district and went so far as to shift the local Board of Education to an advisory role, and to appoint a new Superintendent. To date, Camden is the only district in New Jersey that is under state control and without power to elect district leaders.
Three years later, QSAC scores had improved, on average to 11% in instruction and program, 20% in personnel, 40% in operations, 64% in fiscal management and 66% in governance. While there were actually drops in operations and fiscal management, Camden’s average score in 2012 was 37.4%, and in 2015 had climbed to 40.2%; the jump in governance is by far the most notable achievement. But, given that Camden is still technically “failing” in all five areas, it is unlikely that the State will relinquish control by 2018, which will mark the five-year minimum. However, if a district demonstrates success and improvement, the Commissioner may decide to return control in one to five areas; so, if Camden scores an 80% or higher in governance in 2018, it is possible that the district could see a partial return of control.
Okay, let’s pause. That section has a lot of numbers and overuse of the clunky acronym “QSAC” so I’m going to shift back to casual, conversation. Cause that’s what blogs are for, right?
A little “fun-fact” about me: I have a difficult-to-repress belief in democracy and progress via policy change (surprise, I am a privileged white girl with left-leaning parents who believe in capitalism, i.e. Baby Boomers), and when I was a student-staff member at my University's student organizing agency, I was often told that I didn’t like direct action (yes, people told me what I liked and didn’t like, but that is neither here nor there). It’s no secret that I am interested in policy change, but it is not true that I hate direct action, though I honestly feel that it won’t always work. And my evidence for that is not any past failures of organizing, but rather my understanding of when and how policy change happens. Sometimes, direct action gets the goods, and I like when that happens; that’s democracy and people power. But sometimes, I think it needs to happen in conjunction with legislative and political organizing.
So, here we are in Camden. We want local control, and we’re going to organize for it. Only problem is, organizing on the ground in Camden won’t change QSAC scores, and right now, we’re still required to pass the test to graduate. If we want to organize our way out of a state takeover, we could be so radical as to literally reject it (which the Board here would never do), or we can take our fight to the Statehouse, and demand the policy be amended to include something like a maximum number of years for intervention, or in the very least demand our right to elect school officials. This is the point at which I as an organizer get stuck and frustrated. How do we demand a cessation on Renaissance and charter school expansion when our Board of Education only has advisory status? How do we pressure our Superintendent when we cannot even invoke electoral action? Of course there are strategies and tactics we can and do use, but sometimes it seems like a win is impossible. I tell myself, and more importantly my members and the community that victory is possible in Camden, but I can’t say that I fall asleep every night believing it. I don’t think I’m being pessimistic, but I have a history of operating in an idealistic, optimistic space, and as I’m growing I just trying to keep things real.
* Since 2006, the State has had control of fiscal management in Camden http://www.state.nj.us/education/news/2006/1006cam.htm
