Whatever your view of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka as New Jersey’s next governor–he declared his candidacy last month—he deserves props for his willingness to call out the myth that the state has, as Gov. Phil Murphy and NJEA often insist, the “best school system in the country.” Earlier this  week during a talk at Fairleigh Dickinson University he told FDU pollster and political scientist Peter Woolley that while we may be #1 for white and Asian students, if you  compare New Jersey’s Hispanic students to students in other states, we’re #9 and for Black students we’re #17. Among students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, New Jersey comes in at #25, only one slot higher than Kentucky,

“People talk about segregation in terms of race and class, which exists — and we have to deal with it,” Baraka said. “But there’s also segregation of curriculum. There are some schools that don’t even have AP courses. There are schools that are not preparing children to be college-ready.”

In an interview at Rowan University, Baraka told Politico,

“We have more superintendents in New Jersey than we actually have mayors, which means we’re actually paying extra for segregation.”  

In this way, Baraka is exactly right to claim that the mayoral post in Newark is a fine training ground for the Governor’s Office: the dismal student proficiency levels in our largest school district, where almost all students are Black or Brown, reflects our failure to provide them with the kind of public education students get in nearby towns, just by virtue of ZIP code.

Even within Newark, which Baraka no doubt knows—he was the principal of Central High School— there is segregation of curriculum. Advanced Placement courses are a convenient metric: If you meet the rigorous admissions criteria to attend elite Science Park High School, you’ll have 29 AP courses to choose from; 53% of students take at least one. But if you are enrolled in Malcolm X. Shabazz High School, only 17% of your peers will bother to enroll in one of the 4 AP courses offered and if you’re at Barringer High School only 6% of students will. (The Mayor no doubt knows that public charters like North Star, which enroll far more low-income students than the district and do it through a blind lottery, offer students many more options: there, students can choose among 18 AP courses and 85% of them take at least one.)

Here is what is true: the unevenness of academic opportunities in Newark is reflective of New Jersey as a whole. Ten miles away in Millburn where the average house costs more than a million dollars (and where the community is currently fighting hard against a mandated affordable housing plan), high school students can choose among 40 AP courses; 61% of students enroll.

In 2025 we will most likely have many gubernatorial candidates to choose from: currently, just on the blue side of the aisle, we’re looking at a line-up of not only Baraka but Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Sen. Jon Bramnick, Steve Sweeney, U,S, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, and (maybe) NJEA President Sean Spiller. Yet if Baraka is willing to speak  honestly about our schools, maybe that will inspire his competitors to ditch distorted pretensions and engage in some straight talk about the educational inequities many of our children face every day.

Now that’s what I call progressive.

Photo courtesy of the City of Newark.