Here’s how toxic Betsy DeVos-style “school choice” has become: even DeVos herself is softening her language (if not her policies). There’s reasons for that: 1) the idea that school choice alone can improve student outcomes is increasingly being combatted by…
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There’s been a fair bit of progressive angst in South Jersey after the primaries. Part of that is about the undemocratic ballot used in local elections, and how it makes it very difficult for newcomers to run for office. Part…
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Dr. Andrew Kahrl’s New York Times Op-Ed is worth reading in full. As a scholar of the history of segregation, he ties recent phenomena’s like the Philadelphia Starbucks incident to Jim Crow and beyond. And not just in the South…
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Today at Rutgers’ Bloustein School, we’re reporting on #EdJusticeConf — a conference that deals with critical issues around education reform, social justice, and communities. Here’s the organizers description: Over the past twenty years, neoliberal education reforms have gained increasing momentum…
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UPDATE: Video from the event and images of the PowerPoint slides are found in the comments, below. South Jersey Women for Progressive Change has been working hard to both educate and organize progressives. That ongoing effort continues today at the…
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This is cross-posted from the Local Knowledge Blog. There was a big feature over the weekend on millennials in Camden. It featured a lot of folks I know and consider friends — and it’s cool to see that work highlighted. At…
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Camden has America’s least democratic school district. The city has an appointed board of education, that appointed board can’t effect change because the board is “advisory” while the district is under state takeover, and with the rapid increase of renaissance…
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Just a quick, informal invitation here. I’m giving a research talk titled: “Nonprofit Segregation: the Exclusion and Impact of White Nonprofit Networks”. It’s based on a book chapter that my colleague Dr. Brandi Blessett and I are co-authoring in a…
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For years there has been a tenuous educational consensus in New Jersey. First with then Newark-mayor Cory Booker who partnered with Chris Christie to radically alter the Newark education system. Once that coalition fell apart (in no small part due…
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The fight for local control in Newark has been long and hard. You’d forgive public education advocates if they took a deep breath. But local control is not an end state, and its advocates know that the school board is…
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