Dive Brief:
- According to a Department of Education letter sent last week, New Jersey state and district leaders may have failed to abide by the terms of their No Child Left Behind waiver during the state’s aggressive turnaround effort in Newark.
- The waiver required that New Jersey’s Regional Achievement Centers devise a plan for reforming the state’s lowest-performing schools.
- But the letter, which was sent June 19 to the Education Law Center by Acting U.S. Assistant Education Secretary Heather Reiman, says soon-to-exit Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson instead designed the controversial plan for overhauling the district and subsequently had it approved by the Regional Achievement Center.
Dive Insight:
It’s not clear what the effect of that discovery will be. The Department of Education is currently reviewing New Jersey’s request for additional waiver flexibility, which would allow actions like Anderson’s.
It may be that the effects will be primarily political. Former New Jersey education commissioner Chris Cerf is considered Anderson’s likely replacement, but his close ties to Anderson and Gov. Chris Christie, who backed Anderson’s plan, have drawn intense scrutiny and ire in the wake of the letter’s release.
“Cami needed to fail our schools and Cerf aided and abetted,” John Abeigon, the incoming leader of the Newark Teacher’s Union, told New Jersey Advance Media. “What they did was morally reprehensible. We were right all along, and here's the evidence.”