I cover Asbury Park a lot, some might say too often. There’s a reason: Asbury Park, in all its administrative dysfunction, disregard for dismal student outcomes, and lack of accountability to parents and taxpayers, is New Jersey’s public education problems writ small. 

Remember, this is a school district where student proficiency is so low that, according to the State Department of Education, it ranks 425th out of 425 districts in math and 436th out of 436 for reading. 

The chaos continued Monday during a five-hour school board meeting as superintendent Rashawn Adams tried to get the school board to lay off 10 teachers, including the only Haitian-speaking social worker for the mostly Hispanic student body and the head of security for a district that often confronts violence.

The Triad of Dysfunction

What are the three common denominators that lead to this sort of dysfunction, not only in tiny Asbury Park but in larger districts  like Newark too?

1. Leadership that eschews accountability and looks for scapegoats.
2. Disregard for the voices of students, parents, and teachers.
3. A state Department of Education so consumed by culture wars and lowering standards that it disregards its primary responsibility, oversight of local districts.

Today Paul Tractenberg,  founder of the Rutgers University Center for Diversity and Equality in Education, reflected on Asbury Park’s woes:

The problem ultimately is related to the state to actually do what is required to do and ultimately take over districts that can’t cut it on their own. That presumes they are getting adequate support from the state which is not the case.

In other words, if the Murphy Administration was doing its job it would take over Asbury Park. 

But it won’t and Monday’s meeting displayed the interplay of these three elements.

The Blame Game

On Monday Adams claimed students’ lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills is due to underfunding by the state. “We’ve been underfunded since 2015,” he said. “It’s an abomination.” 

Really? In 2020 Asbury Park’s cost per pupil was $42K, so high that Gov. Christie used it as a poster child for wretched excess. Now it’s down to $31K as the state weans overfunded districts off a line item called Adjustment Aid but, according to the Asbury Park Press, the district still ranks fourth from the top in per-pupil spending.

Adams also blamed the district’s falling enrollment (down to about 1,400 students pre-K-12 from about 1,700 a few years ago) on “misinformation” and parents choosing area charter schools as a public alternative; one board member sycophantically chimed in, charters have a “multi-million dollar PR machine” (um, they don’t). 

Everyone is to blame for the district’s woe except Adams and his hulking administrative team, although the local teachers union reminded him Monday that it had filed 40 grievances over the last year, mostly because his administrators don’t know how to evaluate staff.  (There are six Supervisors of Curriculum and Instruction in a district the size of a high school. To be fair, this top-level obesity started two superintendents ago with Lamont Repollet, who became Murphy’s first Education Commissioner.)  

Disregard for Community Voice

On Monday night it was loud and clear as parents, teachers, and residents spent two hours begging Adams and the board to retain important staff positions and maybe lay off the Athletic Director who curses at students. (Asbury Park already has an Athletic Director but Adams feels threatened by him so, after firing him didn’t work, just hired a second one.)

One teacher said to the board, “If you’re Adams’ crony you can do anything you want.”

“Right now, unfortunately for the school district, it is a very hostile and combative environment at this point,” said John Napolitani, president of the Asbury Park Education Association and long-time teacher. “It’s sad what’s happened. To see what’s happened to the school district over this period of time.”

Senator Vin Gopal, head of the Senate Education Committee, told the Press, “These teachers are very unhappy there. It is the responsibility of the superintendent and the administration to improve the culture.”

A State Department That Prioritizes Optics Over Children

And what about our third element, oversight from Murphy’s Department of Education? There’s been a fiscal monitor, Carole Morris, there for over 10 years who makes about $160,000 (plus her pension; backstory here) but doesn’t make a difference.

Morris is silent on Adams’ excesses, as she was with his two predecessors, Lamont Repollet, famous for his 64 Floor scheme, a philosophy he took to the DOE when Gov. Murphy hired him as his first Commissioner, and Repollet’s successor Sancha Gray (who now works with him in his office at Kean University).  

Anyway, the DOE is busy lowering the bar for proficiency on standardized test scores to bolster the myth that NJ has, according to current commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan, “the best school system in the country” as well as inserting far-left distortions of racial equity and gender identity into student learning standards.

So Asbury Park remains Asbury Park. In NJ’s largest district, Newark, the same elements are present: a power-hungry superintendent who disregards dismal student outcomes, a disenfranchised community that shows up at board meetings and pleads for support, a state department that fails to privilege student academic needs over politics.

But, hey, it’s not all so grim. At the end of the meeting the Asbury Park board of education declined to approve all of Adams’ recommendations, keeping the Haitian-speaking social worker and head of security, along with several other positions. They didn’t want to approve the budget but Morris insisted they do so (there’s a deadline to submit it to the state), with the understanding there would be further cuts. 

The Board listened to the community. Adams remains defiant. State oversight is lax and ineffective.

Who are the losers in this recipe?

Asbury Park families and others like them, trapped in dysfunctional districts ruled not by the needs of students but by the politics of adults.