Complaint contends that Christie’s school turnaround plan does nothing for poor black and Hispanic students
By John Mooney
Sharon Smith, activist and mother of three, who filed the Newark civil rights complaint.
Forty Newark parents and activists boarded a charter bus to Washington, D.C., late yesterday to join in what is becoming a growing backlash to public school closures in cities across the country.
The contingent is headed to a hearing at the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday to deal with civil rights complaints filed in Newark and nearly a dozen other cities against the increasing use of closures as part of so-called school turnaround efforts.
The state-run Newark Public Schools last year closed six facilities that were deemed underperforming and underenrolled. Some were then reopened or rented out to charters. More public schools are expected to be evaluated for the coming academic year.
As in other states, the Newark closures have been criticized as destabilizing to neighborhoods and not offering any improvement for students, who are predominantly poor and African-American or Hispanic.
That was the gist of the complaint filed by a Newark mother and student to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights last July, part of what is becoming a well-organized and funded nationwide effort pushing back against the closures.
The Office of Civil Rights accepted the Newark complaint and said in a letter this month that the “allegation was appropriate for investigation.” The hearing on Tuesday is about that complaint and others, with residents and activists from 18 cities in all said to be attending.
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