Real reform vs. sham reform

 

Some readers misread my previous post on MN's sham police reform as an indictment of reform efforts in general. That certainly wasn't my intention. I know there are some who maintain that police reform (and all reform) is a waste of time and "has never worked". I'm not one of them. As I pointed out in that piece, there are meaningless, lollipop reforms that are simply diversions, as well genuine, deep-going, comprehensive reforms that arise directly from people's struggle and are worthy of our support. Consider the current George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. 

While the racist and repressive character of our criminal justice system remains a constant, the movement in the streets, combined with strong and committed political leadership, can drive change and force constraints on racist policing. A good example is Newark, where cops did not fire a single shot during  calendar year 2020, and where the city didn’t pay a single dime to settle police brutality cases. That’s never happened, at least in the city’s modern history.

From 2015 to 2019, the Newark Police Department killed eight Black men, according to The Washington Post, more than any other department in the state. 

The changes in Newark were partly the result of strong leadership from Mayor Ras Baraka and from the constant pressure applied by the city's historically strong community and youth organizations. Newark is also operating under also a federally enforced consent decree. Under Baraka, the police have met with community groups, giving residents some control over law enforcement. Pressure from below, from the Black Lives Matter movement, has constrained police shootings. Meanwhile, serious crime in Newark has dropped by 40% in the last five years dispelling the notion that constraining the cops will increase crime.

Larry Hamm, long-time Newark community organizer and  head of the People’s Organization for Progress, points out:  “Police brutality is still a problem, but it’s fair to say the consent decree has had a real impact." Hamm was a protege of the late Amiri Baraka, the writer/activist who helped shape Newark's modern history.

Hamm and the POP want state lawmakers to pass a bill that would make civilian complaint review boards with subpoena power possible for all municipalities in New Jersey. He also called on state legislators to pass another bill that would make police disciplinary records public.

The Star-Ledger reports:

The reforms are the results of a federal consent decree, the billy club used by the Department of Justice after a long investigation concluded in 2014 revealed the rot that had infested the department for decades. It found a rogue department that tolerated widespread brutality and racism, with no accountability, and zero training on how to de-escalate confrontations with civilians.

Questions remain as to whether the reforms in Newark can hold. Cops are still using force against Black residents, and activists remain split on the future of public safety there. Newark is a majority-Black city with a poverty level above 63%. Black people are still disproportionately stopped, frisked, and arrested. The new year also brought Newark’s streak to an abrupt end. At 12:03 a.m. on January 1, 2021, plainclothes cops shot and killed Carl Dorsey, a 39-year-old father. The state’s attorney general is investigating the incident. 

But it's wrong to ignore or minimize the gains that have been made and the victories won, especially in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder and a string of others. Yes, there's still a long, difficult road ahead but it's one worth taking. 

Environmental Justice: Water crisis in Newark worse than Flint, on Booker/Christie's watch

A pallet of bottled water is delivered to a recreation center, Tuesday in Newark. 

Former Newark Mayor and presidential candidate, Sen. Cory Booker is acting like he just discovered that the lead-contaminated water system has been poisoning the children and families of his city for years. The latest figures from federal observers show that children in Newark's Essex County are in fact nearly four times more likely to have elevated blood lead levels than those in Flint.

Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a dire warning about lead contamination, and New Jersey environmental officials found a problem with “ineffective corrosion treatment” at one of the city’s two water-treatment facilities.

In addition, according testing found that 2 out of 3 filters tested in three Newark homes failed to effectively reduce lead contamination.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Booker called on the federal government to step in.

"Everyone deserves clean, safe water," Booker wrote. "It's shameful that our national crisis of lead-contaminated water disproportionately hits poor black and brown communities like my own."

But where has Booker been up until this past week when the media started shining light on the crisis? He still hasn't taken any responsibility for the problem even though he was Newark's mayor from 2006 to 2013.

Small point...He might have used that $100M he got from Zuckerberg as a start in alleviating the problem instead pissing it away on charter schools.

As The Root reported earlier this year, in an open letter to Donald Trump, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka urged him to spend money on fixing the city’s and the nation’s old water-delivery systems, rather than a border wall.

Former Gov. Chris Christie was even worse. He actively covered up the crisis and downplayed the need for federal intervention.

The Klonsky Bros. will be talking environmental justice and toxic racism tomorrow, 11-noon CT, on Hitting Left with Chicago socialist alderman, Byron Sigcho and Juliana Pino, policy director at the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. Tune in to WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago and streaming live on lumpenradio.com

In Newark, Cami Anderson is out. Cerf back in.

Cami Anderson is toast. 

There's a lot going on in Newark. The good news is that Cami Anderson, otherwise known as "Newark's Michelle Rhee", has finally been forced out as superintendent.

Following the state's takeover of Newark schools, she brought the city to the boiling point with the unveiling of  her “One Newark” plan for school closings and charter school proliferation in much the same way as Rhee did in D.C. Her corporate-style reform plan would have relocated neighborhood schools, converted others to privately-run  charter schools and re-engineered still more traditional public schools by replacing all their principals and firing hundreds of teachers in violation of the contract.

Things have grown so hot in Newark that Anderson no longer attends meetings of the locally elected school advisory board. Ras Baraka's election as mayor more or less sealed Anderson's fate as he solidified the black community's opposition to Anderson and the plan.

The bad news is that Anderson is being replaced by corporate reformer Chris Cerf who is being recycled back into the post by his pal Chris Christie. Cerf was N.J. Education Commissioner before departing in Feb. 2014 (when Christie came under investigation), to hook up with international media criminal Rupert Murdoch.

Fired teacher Marilyn Zuniga

It was Cerf who brokered a landmark tenure law with AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten, a contract which bases teacher evaluation largely on student test scores. He also approved 37 N.J. charter schools and was a key player in the deal to bring $100 million in Mark Zuckerberg money into the corporate reformers' pockets. No one seems to know where that money went.

Also in Newark, support is building for teacher Marilyn Zuniga who was fired by the board for allowing her students to send get-well messages to political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. You can get the whole story from this interview Zuniga did with Real News Network's Jared Ball.

Right-wing think-tanker Hess lectures Newark "rabble-rousers" on civility

Community "rabble-rousers" protest Newark One in Feb. 2014.

More lectures on civility from right-wing think-tanker Rick Hess directed towards Newark parents and community activists [Hess calls them "rabble-rousers". No really, he does.] who traveled to D.C. to protest Supt. Cami Anderson's speech at AEI. Once Anderson and the think-tankers caught wind that the angry community members were planning to make their voices heard, they quickly flew the coop and re-staged Anderson's performance in a room without an audience. It seems she can't go anywhere these days without be dogged by angry Newark residents.

Anderson, appointed by Gov. Chris Christie, is the architect of  “One Newark”, a corporate-style reform plan to relocate neighborhood schools, convert others to privately-run  charter schools and re-engineer still more traditional public schools by replacing all their principals and firing hundreds of teachers in violation of the contract. It's a plan that devastates already resourced-starved Newark neighborhoods.

The Washington Post reports:

The plan for the 35,000-student school system has been the target of lawsuits, a federal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education and student boycotts. It was a central factor in last spring’s mayoral race, which led to high school principal Ras Baraka winning office in large part because of his opposition to One Newark. Baraka wrote to President Obama last month and asked him to intervene on behalf of the community.

"I’m opposed to all of it,” Baraka said by phone Thursday. “She has forced this down people’s throats, and the people don’t want it. We need a new superintendent.”

Tensions have grown so much in Newark that Anderson no longer attends meetings of the locally elected school advisory board, where her opponents regularly railed against her, hurling invectives.

Anderson & Christie

But to the why-can't-we-all-just-get-along-minded Hess, African-American and Latino families demonstrating peacefully but loudly to save their schools is equivalent to "vitriolic and even threatening tactics." To Hess, it's all about civil debate, so long as he controls the speakers and the agenda. To show how fair minded he is, he boasts:

 Over the years, I've hosted "reformers" including the likes of Arne Duncan, Rod Paige, Joel Klein, Kaya Henderson, Michelle Rhee, John Deasy, Jim Shelton, John White, Deb Gist, Howard Fuller, and Campbell Brown. I've hosted those who come at things very differently, such as Randi Weingarten, Diane Ravitch, Dennis van Roekel, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, Debbie Meier, Carol Burris, Kevin Welner, and Larry Cuban.

He writes:

But it's the hypocrisy that bothers me the most. A group that claims it is disenfranchised and silenced, and wants only to be heard, adopts tactics that stifle debate.

"Claims it is disenfranchised and silenced"? Did Hess really say that?

Well, let's put it this way. They may still be disenfranchised, but they weren't silenced for long at AEI. Maybe he should have included some of them among his approved list of "reformers".

A real policy debate would have taken place BEFORE the schools were closed and privatized, not after the fact. Parents and community were excluded from the debate then and they were excluded (not invited) to the debate by AEI. Instead they made their voices heard the best way they could. They were heard again last May, in the city's mayoral election when they elected Mayor Baraka, a militant opponent of Anderson's and of "One Newark". And yet the program remains.

Hess should know that people still have the right to protest against oppressive government policies, while those bureaucrats enforcing those policies still have the right to run and hide from the community.

It's a free country.

Independent movement carries Ras Baraka to victory in Newark

Speaking to the crowd, Baraka wished his mother a happy Mother's Day and said he knew his father, who died in January, was "in the room tonight." He urged the crowd to "be the mayor" and work for positive change, a reference to one of his campaign slogans, "When I become mayor, we become mayor." -- AP Wire

Yesterday's historic victory of Ras Baraka over corporate-backed Shavar Jeffries, following on the heels of progressive mayoral wins in New York, L.A. and a string of other cities, has meaning way beyond Newark. Harold Meyerson, writing on Bill Moyers' blog calls it, "the revolt of the cities." Baraka, who served as principal of Central High School, in addition to his duties as councilman, made opposition to school closings and corporate reform an integral part of his platform.

Despite millions of dollars being poured into Jeffries' superPAC by panicked DFER and other corporate school reformers, Baraka was able to ride the power of an independent Working Families movement, built on an alliance between organized labor (teachers and public sector workers in the lead) and the black community. Believe me when I tell you that with the 2015 mayoral race approaching, we here in Chicago are watching Newark closely and hopefully drawing the appropriate lessons.

DUNCAN SILENT...Funny, I don't hear Arne Duncan even mentioning mayoral control these days. Remember when it was his no.1 priority? Now with Corey Booker out, Chris Christie under investigation, Cami Anderson's "One Newark" plan for school closings and charter school proliferation in the toilet, and Chris Cerf gone to work for Murdoch,  the DFER heldge-fund reformers must be in a state of shock and awe.

Max Blumenthal ‏@MaxBlumenthal Tweets:

Baraka's biggest line of the night: Today is the day that we say goodbye to the bosses... We have to keep the schools open. #BelieveInNewark

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Jim Hightower

The grubby little secret of today's ivory tower is that it is being propped up by an ever-growing, exploited underclass of educators. "Adjunct professors," they're called, and the term itself is a measure of the disrespect they're shown. -- Hightower Lowdown

Ras Baraka

"Today, the ministers of Newark have joined me in calling for a moratorium on the destructive One Newark Plan to close our schools, a plan already being implemented against the will of the people of Newark.” -- Diane Ravitch Blog

LaGuardia Dance Teacher Michelle Mathesius

“We find it ironic and extremely worrisome that, in this era of increasing accountability, the most talented children are refused admittance to the very school where their talent could be recognized and developed, while applicants with higher grades and test scores, but less talent, are accepted instead. Such a practice is more than unjust: it is discrimination, pure and simple, a disservice to the children of this city.” -- N.Y. Times

Tenn. Gov. Bill Haslam

 “You have this unlikely marriage of folks on the far right who are convinced this [Common Core] is part of a federal takeover of local education, who have joined hands with folks on the left associated with teachers unions who are trying to sever any connection between test results and teacher evaluation.” -- N.Y. Times

Newark at the boiling point. Cami Anderson is their Michelle Rhee

Mayoral candidate Ras Baraka, standing outside Weequahic High School in Newark, attacks Cami Anderson's "One Newark" plan. (Frances Micklow/The Star-Ledger)

Cami Anderson is Newark's Michelle Rhee. She's brought the city to the boiling point with the unveiling of  her “One Newark” plan for school closings and charter school proliferation in much the same way as Rhee did in D.C., before being run out of town by angry voters. Anderson is Gov. Christie's hand-picked schools chief and the community is demanding she be fired. She became notorious last month after suspending five school principals for speaking out against her plan.

Last week, AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten joined school and activists in protesting the plan, which will affect a quarter of the city’s schools. She addressed a packed board meeting promising AFT support for the fight against the plan [see video]. Anderson’s plan includes giving charter schools access to current district buildings, moving some schools to new locations and remaking others into charters. Shades of Chicago.

Weingarten's appearance marks a major shift in the union's approach in Newark and in her relationship with New Jersey's scandalized governor. I still have troubling memories of Weingarten and Christie fawning over each other on Morning Joe, over the deal they cut on the Newark teachers' contract. It was the worst display of seat-at-the-table unionism I had seen in years. Both hailed the deal as a "model" for the rest of the country. Now the state's teachers and communities like Newark are paying the price. I'm glad to see the apparent shift.

ACROSS THE RIVER...

Wasn't N.Y. Mayor Bill de Blasio great Monday night on the Daily Show? Funny when he wanted to be. Serious when he had to be.

“I don’t wear the Che Guevara T-shirt at work,” the mayor said, after joking that he kept a portrait of Guevara, the Marxist revolutionary, in his office. “I have thought about that.”

 Mr. Stewart pressed the mayor about his battle with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over how to finance universal prekindergarten programs, suggesting that the state and city could split the bill. “Why can’t we go 50-50 on this bad boy?” Mr. Stewart asked.

BdB instead proposed  tax increase on those NY'ers making over a half-million or more, to insure that the money would be there, an increase he said that would amount to the "price of a small [daily] soy latte at Starbucks."

Newark teachers got the shaft [Updated]

Warning to teachers. Please don't watch this video immediately after eating.

I was sickened to see Randi Weingarten and Tea-Party Gov. Christie on Morning Joe, fawning over each other and over the deal they cut on the Newark teachers' contract. It was the worst display of seat-at-the-table unionism I have seen in years. Both are hailing the deal as a "model" for the rest of the country. I hope against hope that it isn't. Christie called it "the most gratifying day of my governorship, by far." That should tell you something about the deal right there. New Jersey Education Commissioner and chief privatizer Chris Cerf (not be be confused with Che Guevara) called the contract "revolutionary." Union President Joseph Del Grosso was a little more restrained, calling it a "roadmap" and  “a step in the right direction for the teaching profession."

I can understand why many Newark teachers voted for the contract (actually, only a slight majority of city teachers even voted and 62% of them voted yes). They have been forced to work without any contract these past two years, under the state takeover of their schools, and now will receive some retroactive pay. They were also given some input into the design of their own evaluations which are still based largely on student test scores along with peer evaluation, and which will determine whether they receive "merit pay" from now on. So the argument could be made that this was the best they could get. Of course, that's not what Weingarten and Christie are saying.

Teacher pay is now also dependent upon the largesse of billionaires Eli Broad and  know-nothing power philanthropist Mark Zuckerberg who can pull the plug on his $100 million gift at any time -- for example, if Christie or Newark mayor Corey Booker were to be defeated in the next election. This is the same kind of top-down manipulation and leveraging of Gates and Broad grant money that Michelle Rhee and former Mayor Fenty pulled off in D.C. before voters gave them the boot. Newark schools have been turned into beggars operating largely on private funding to circumvent public decision-making. A Tea Party dream come true. 

Teachers are no longer guaranteed pay step and lane increases based on credentials. They can win bonuses for teaching in low-performing schools (not a bad idea in and of itself). Teachers who are deemed "ineffective" based on a test-based, value-added formula, can elect to be rated by an independent "peer validator." That review will be considered before determining their final ratings or whether they should be fired or "mentored." However, Newark School Superintendent Cami Anderson will have the final say if an agreement on a teacher's competence can't be reached. What? Where's the union grievance procedure in all this?

The Star-Ledger reports that Christie is now threatening the NJEA:

The AFT is only affiliated with Newark teachers; the rest of the state’s more than 100,000 teachers are aligned with the New Jersey Education Association, which insists merit pay is discriminatory and a recipe for low morale. "I hope that they would look at this as a model," Christie said of the NJEA. "If they don’t, they’ll become dinosaurs, because this is where education in America is moving, and you can either be part of the difference or you can be run over by it."

Edweek reports that critics of the contract include the members of a new political "caucus" or party within the NFT. Called the New Caucus, the group has posted a number of documents that pick apart aspects of the contract.

The New Caucus seems modeled on the rise of similar groups, such as the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators in Chicago, from which emerged Karen Lewis, the hard-charging president of the Chicago Teachers' Union; and the the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, a similar one in New York City.

Weingarten was one of Christie’s most prominent critics last year, when he slashed state pensions and health benefits by shifting more costs to public workers. Christie joked that if he could find common ground with Randi Weingarten, then Democratic President Barack Obama should be able to get along with Republicans in Washington. Buckle up, folks.