The South Jersey Editorial Board first published this here.

What’s going on with Camden’s school board? It’s a good thing they don’t do anything important, like actually run Camden City schools.

In the last few weeks, the longtime board president, Wasim Muhammad took a leave of absence after being accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing a student for years. A former social studies teacher previously known as Don Walker, court documents allege that Muhammad began assaulting the student when she was 14 and attended a city middle school.

Gov. Phil Murphy, in a statement, has called the allegations “appalling and heinous” and has called for Muhammad to resign from the board completely, even though the litigation is still going through the courts.

A second board member, Clayton Gonzalez, abruptly resigned in December when was it learned that he’s facing a slew of criminal charges related to threatening a woman with an unregistered gun.

The full name of the nine-member panel on which Muhammad serves, and on which Gonzalez served, is the Camden City Schools Advisory Board. This is because the beleaguered school district is actually run by the State of New Jersey. Board members have been elected by the community since November 2019, representing a loosening of the reins on the district since the state takeover in 2013. But, the the board serves in an advisory capacity only.

Ever since then-Gov. Chris Christie announced the takeover because of performance issues — Camden joins only Newark, Paterson and Jersey City to have had the New Jersey Department of Education as an overseer — city activists and other residents have been clamoring for a return of local control.

In 2021, the progressive advocacy group New Jersey Policy Perspective issued a report indicating that students’ academic performance had not improved over the eight years that the schools were last under local control. Another 2023 analysis echoes those conclusions. Other studies, including one released by Brown University, also in 2021, found that the state takeover had a positive effect on math and reading test scores. Interestingly, though, the Brown researchers found that this kind of improvement was not the norm in the 33 other state-takeover districts the study analyzed across the nation.

You pick your philosophy, then find a study to match, apparently.

Camden’s schools do seem to have improved vitality under state-appointed superintendent, Katrina McCombs. The administration seems to have shed some of its organizational roadblocks, a process that started with the first state-appointed superintendent, Paymon Rouhanifard. Rouhanifard made a concerted effort to connect with students and local media partner. He resigned in 2018, and when he did, the New York Times lauded his efforts: “With a new model of charter and a new superintendent, student performance and the graduation rate have surged. The dropout rate has been cut in half. When the state arrived in 2013, 23 of the city’s 26 public schools were on the list of New Jersey’s worst performing, eight are now.”

Perhaps the jury is still out on whether or not state control has brought the desired achievements in Camden. The growing prevalence of charter and “renaissance” schools, as well as the learning loss common to all school districts from COVID-19 closures, could affect the measurement yardsticks.

While in general, New Jersey has far too many individual school districts — many small ones need to be consolidated — the concept of community operation of and involvement in schools is always preferred.

Ultimately, the question of when Camden citizens can reclaim their own children’s educational destiny has to be asked seriously, and the answer, at one point, will need to be “now.”

The travails of Muhammad and Gonzalez on the school board are not confidence-inspiring for a near-term “now” answer. Each was reelected to the board in November, unopposed, and Muhammad was again chosen as president by the full advisory board this month.

Arguably, even if they are found responsible for the behavior in the allegations, it has no direct correlation with student achievement. But, in a city with Camden’s history of violent crime, the pair’s involvement with the schools sets a tone that is at odds with gains in livibility in recent years.