Today’s WHYY Newsworks column:

New Jersey’s mayoral elections are in two weeks and the eyes of the education community are focused on Newark’s contentious race as the candidates debate the fate of Cami Anderson, Newark’s lightning rod of a superintendent.

But shift your attention to Trenton, one of N.J.’s 21 “Type 1” districts, where voters delegate school board selection to the mayor. Trenton, like Newark, has a mayoral race on May 13 and the winner will hand-pick school board members, who will then select the next superintendent. (Francisco Duran, the current CEO of the district, is entertaining better offers.) The mayor-selected board will also oversee all aspects of public school governance, except fiscal matters; Trenton is one of seven N.J. school districts with state-appointed fiscal monitors due to histories of financial mismanagement.

Read the rest here.

* two typos in the Newsworks copy: “lightning,” not “lightening” in the first paragraph and “Jackson is considered the frontrunner” (not “Gordon”) in the fifth. Should be fixed soon.