On Thursday, December 7th, the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Gov. Phil Murphy’s nomination for State Board of Education. He wants Mary Bennett to replace Elizabeth Gazi, whose term has expired.

Feeling a bit of deja vu?

That’s because last January Senator Brian Stack (D-Union City), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, pulled Bennett’s name at the request of some the committee’s Republican members. His colleagues on the other side of the aisle asked for the delay because Bennett hadn’t disclosed her association with the New Jersey Coalition for Diverse and Inclusive Schools (NJCDIS), which is part of the big desegregation lawsuit currently in mediation. In addition, NJCDIS passionately opposes public charter schools, despite their potential role in desegregating NJ’s state school system.

That last piece isn’t gratuitous: Bennett has stood on both sides of the aisle herself, at least in regards to public school choice, which isn’t on NJCDIS’s wish-list. In 2016 she chaired the Newark’s Education Success Board (NESB), the committee appointed by Mayor Ras Baraka to plan for the district’s return to local control. In the report issued by NESB, she acknowledged that “75% of kindergarten families preferred a school that was not their closest district school and 42% of families selected a charter school as their first choice.” She also highlighted the need for a strong partnership between the city district and the charter sector–“Students and families are best served when the different sectors communicate and share resources to ensure that all schools in Newark are delivering the highest quality education for all children”—and said the district would create a “NPS/Charter/Faith-Based Working Group.” 

Of course, that’s not what happened. Newark Superintendent Roger Leon has tried to thwart all public charter expansion in the city. The NPS/Charter/Faith-Based Working Group never was created.

Perhaps a member of the Judiciary Committee will ask Bennett to explain how she reconciles NJCDIS’s anti-charter proclivities with her promises to Newark families.

That’s if anyone gets a chance. Last year, Bennett’s nomination was listed as “non-interview,” meaning no committee member would get to ask her any questions. That’s why Stack agreed to pull her name in the first place. Her status this year is unclear.

According to the Governor’s Office press release from last year, Bennett “has served as an Educational Consultant for the Seton Hall University Academy for Urban Transformation since 2007. In her capacity as an Educational Consultant, Bennett works to further the mission of the Academy by sharing expertise and experience to serve the urban school community.”

Photo courtesy of the Governor’s Office.