The Real Crisis Isn’t in Montclair. It’s the Policy Starving Newark

Franklin School in the North Ward section of the city of Newark  - Kenneth C. Zirkel.

The national media is fixated on a bogus crisis, the one about affluent suburban districts getting lazy after test scores dipped. They call it the "Declining Standards Hypothesis," arguing it’s all political distraction. Frankly, that misses the whole point. The actual crisis is the long-term, policy-driven structural abandonment of high-poverty urban school systems like Newark, New Jersey. 

 Newark’s situation isn't a simple local flop; it’s an indictment of policy failure. 

The Newark Contradiction: Administrative Fix, Structural Failure 

Look, the data on Newark Public Schools (NPS) is complex. You've got rising graduation rates, and post-state takeover, the district achieved "High Performing" status in its administration, governance, and financials. That's solid progress. 

But here's the kicker: That competency sits right alongside critically low proficiency in math, persistent learning gaps between student subgroups, and high chronic absenteeism. Why? Because administrative fixes can’t beat deep-seated structural deficits. The city is struggling under what Gloria Ladson-Billings terms the educational debt—the cumulative result of sustained historical and economic inequities. Trying to blame local political culture just obscures these structural realities. 

The truth is that Newark’s uneven results are a consequence of systemic inequities, fragmented instructional support, and the national trend of federal retrenchment—the weakening of Washington’s capacity to help. 

 Accountability Without Capacity 

The city endured 22 years of state intervention (1995–2018), a period of centralized governance and high-stakes testing that promised transformation but primarily delivered control without the capacity to implement it. This rigid, top-down accountability failed to generate sustained academic gains, instead leading to a mechanistic narrowing of the curriculum. 

 As Linda Darling-Hammond argues, genuine accountability requires the state to ensure that schools have the funding, qualified staff, and coherent resources necessary for success. The conservative emphasis on austerity and market-driven reforms, like charter expansion without commensurate public funding, systematically denies these conditions. Diane Ravitch has spent years detailing how punitive accountability regimes rarely produce genuine learning. The low test scores? They don't measure student failure; they measure policy failure.

Removing the Federal Guardrails 

The most serious threat to vulnerable districts today is the concerted effort to dismantle or defund the U.S. Department of Education (DoE). This is a policy of intentional structural divestment.

 The DoE isn't just bureaucracy; it’s the legal and financial backstop. It enforces Title I funding for high-poverty schools and guarantees services for students with disabilities under IDEA. When federal staffing and oversight weaken, as they have been documented to do, the government loses its ability to enforce equity and coordinate recovery. 

To eliminate the DoE is to pull the last legal and fiscal guardrails, ensuring resources and anti-discrimination protections reach Newark’s students. These services are foundational prerequisites for learning, as Howard Gardner’s work confirms; you need holistic support before academic potential can be reached. Removing the federal guarantor is not local empowerment; it's a structural guarantee that historical deficits remain insurmountable. 

The Structural Justice We Remain to Have

Fixing this mess requires ditching ideological narratives and investing in proven instruction. That means comprehensive investment in teacher preparation and structures that enable Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) and conceptual, inquiry-based math teaching. Experts like Jo Boaler confirm that rote instruction impedes conceptual learning. 

The consensus among foremost education scholars is clear: students thrive when policy builds capacity, strengthens instruction, and addresses structural inequities. Effective recovery demands a strengthened federal-state partnership, one that focuses on structural justice and sustained commitment—not just political expediency or more testing. The crisis is a policy choice, Mr. Rice.

To follow up on the conversation:

Boaler, J. (2019). Limitless mind: Learn, lead, and live without barriers. HarperOne.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2019). Investing for student success: Lessons from state school finance reforms. Learning Policy Institute. School performance report: Newark Public Schools (District). https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/investing-student-success-school-finance-reforms-report/

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. Basic Books.

Jackson, C. & Obgurn, J. (2025, March 24). Explainer: What dismantling the Department of Education really means. Stanford School of Public. [Policy Policy 60 podcast]. https://stanford.duke.edu/story/explainer-what-dismantling-department-education-really-means-podcast/

New Jersey Department of Education. (2024). School performance report: Newark Public Schools (District). https://rc.doe.state.nj.us//rc.doe.state.nj.us




Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the educational debt: Understanding achievement in U.S. schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3–12. DOI:10.3102/0013189X035007003

Ravitch, D.(2025). An Education: How I changed my mind about schools and almost everything else. Columbia University Press.