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

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Nothing about this White House communications department was ever about communicating. On the contrary, it has always been about deception, concealment and equivocation." -- Charles Blow, NYT 

Hap Bryant, National Teachers Academy parent

“We are fighting over scraps." -- WBEZ

Cory McCartan, president of the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers.

Unions aren’t just for factory workers or truck drivers; they are for anyone who wants to have a voice in his workplace. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can transform the labor movement from an ossified relic of the last century into a powerful engine for the social and economic change that this country desperately needs. -- Letter to NYT

AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten 

 “Make no mistake: This use of privatization, coupled with disinvestment, are only slightly more polite cousins of segregation." -- AP Wire

LA Kauffman

Why have so many articles, blog posts, and tweets invoked the resistance without acknowledging who is doing most of the day-to-day work of resisting? -- Guardian

Natalie Moore 

Don’t let OJ Simpson blind us to black victims of injustice. -- Guardian 

Steven W. Thrasher

For the past decade, leading Democrats like Obama, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Senator Cory Booker have trumpeted charter schools (and their disdain for unions, regulation and government enforcement of civil rights protections). They paved the way for the Devos-Trump education nightmare. -- Guardian

Peter Cunningham @PCunningham57 Replying to @mikeklonsky

I have yet to hear any ideas from you about anything. -- Twitter

Mike Klonsky

Listen up -- http://hittingleft.libsyn.com/

Full Transparency

Full transparency: I'm deleting old tweets. Past views evolved & shouldn't be a distraction. I serve @POTUS agenda & that's all that matters

— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 22, 2017

Above the Law

While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2017

The sell-out disease

SEEMS TO BE A LOT OF THIS GOING AROUND LATELY.

Maybe SEIU #73 leaders somehow spread the sell-out disease to New Jersey.

Booker & Christie

The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) is now backing former Newark Mayor Corey Booker, one of its own worst enemies, for senator. Look, they even give him a full page on their website to prattle on about his love for school vouchers. On several occasions, Booker has let it be known that he wanted to make Newark N.J. the capitol of privately-run charter schools. He's also in bed (figuratively speaking, of course), with hated N.J. State Supt. Cami Anderson and her boss Chris Christie.

N.J. Blogger Bob Braun tries to make some sense of it all here.

SAVING AND TRANSFORMING PUBLIC SCHOOLS

I just got this week's special Saving Public Schools issue of The Nation and it's a good one. But the title is somewhat misleading. It's not just about saving public schools, but transforming them and changing the entire system of public education in the process.

The lead editorial, "Our Public Education System Needs Transformation, Not ‘Reform. I would argue, it needs transformation and reform. The great lineup of ed-activist writers includes: Dana Goldstein, Kenzo Shibata, Diane Ravitch, Lee Fang, Pedro Noguera, Gordon Lafer, Daniel Denvir, Michelle Fine, and Michael Fabricant. Don't miss.

The editors write:

A truly progressive vision for public education shouldn’t focus on stories of how a few kids competed their way out of blighted neighborhoods. Instead, it should focus on taking back that stream of money going to charter chains and corporate tax cuts and redirecting it toward schools anchored in strong communities and using proven methods for teaching kids—the very methods deployed in schools where the rich send their children. Indeed, the most disadvantaged kids should get even more support for their schools than their privileged suburban counterparts.

WAR!... Rahm has declared war on the city's retirees and has found some allies in the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which has given the mayor the green light for his three-year phase-out of the city’s 55% city subsidy for retiree health care. This will be upwards of a 50% increase in medical costs for retired city workers, many of who live on a fixed income.

But if its war he wants, it's war he'll get. As Brother Fred points out:

Bad news for the employees. But bad news for Rahm as well. These employees are voters. 28,000 retiree voters.

Quotables

Spellings tells Merrow, NCLB still "99.44% pure"

Former Ed Secretary Margaret Spellings is now running something called the Campaign for Free Enterprise and is a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group:

I am not seeing any headlong rush to abandon NCLB…quite the contrary. While you are right in that the name (NCLB) is often attacked, I am thrilled that the major policies are very much in place and supported by the current administration, which supports standards, data, pay for performance and charters. (Taking Note)

Deborah Meier on Race-to-the-Top

Turning around 5,000 schools—with stimulus money as the bribe? It's a question that is bound to lead us into a deadend. If the only goal is creating “employees” (vs citizens) of the future it may also be both short-sighted--just plain wrongheaded. (National Journal Online)

Jon Corzine's charter dilemma

Education reform in N.J. is producing strange bedfellows. For example, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a rising star of the Democratic Party, has an education agenda that strongly resembles [Republican]Chris Christie’s emphasis on school choice in poor urban neighborhoods and the expansion of charter schools. In contrast, Corzine tiptoes near charter expansion with a mask and gloves like he’s scared of catching swine flu, so wary is he of alienating the NJEA leadership. (NJ Left Behind)

Pragmatists and ideologues

Newark's Mayor Cory Booker has drunk some of David Brooks' "Harlem Miracle" kool-Aid. But here at Huffington he sounds more like a small-schools pragmatist than he does a neocon ideologue:

I have no loyalty to charter schools, traditional public schools, magnet schools, small school models, publicly funded scholarships (vouchers) or private schools. I have loyalty to results. The important question should not be one of philosophy or political perspective, it should be: What is working to empower poor and minority children to have the same educational opportunities in America as those who are more affluent? ...We have recently begun a small school initiative for our high school students who are at risk of dropping out. Further, among other things, our new superintendent is looking to expand our magnet schools of excellence which have long waiting lists and completely reorganize our persistently failing schools.

Hoover's Hoxby

By neocon ideologue, I mean someone more like Hoover Institute's Caroline Hoxby who tries to peddle some snake oil in St. Louis. Hoxby claims that her own study shows an imaginary matched pair of students--one going to a regular public school and one going to a charter (any charter will do)--with the charter school student coming out way more successful. That study, she says, offers proof of total charter superiority. She also claims that her imaginary charter school has all but eliminated the so-called "achievement gap." But then the inevitable happens. Real life rears its ugly head. Some local has the nerve to ask Hoxby:

Why aren’t charter schools in St. Louis performing so well?

Hem, haw, next question!