By John Mooney
[…]State-appointed Newark schools Superintendent Cami Anderson began the presentations, taking the microphone for more than hour and presenting an extensive slideshow on various steps she has taken in her last three years. She cited gains made, in particular, in areas such as leadership development and graduation rates.
The liveliest exchanges came in the board’s questioning of Anderson over ongoing criticism she faces within the community from advocates and activists over what they call a lack of collaboration and public input.
With Cerf coming to her defense, Anderson listed a series of meetings that she has held with parents and others in the community as she developed her plans for the district.
But such meetings have done little to assuage Anderson’s staunchest critics, led by the Newark Teachers Union, which even relocated a press conference from Newark to the Busch Center to highlight the latest controversy over the district’s sale of a school building to the TEAM charter school network.
The local advisory board’s president, Antoinette Baskerville Richardson, issued a statement afterward maintaining that Anderson’s claims of collaboration were not quite as described.
The claims and counter-claims from both sides are not new, tracing back to the start of state control of the Newark schools nearly 20 years ago, well before Anderson’s arrival.
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