Earlier this week, I wrote on the challenges of organizing in Camden, and how they were manifesting themselves in the community effort to make corporations coming to the city accountable to community groups. It was a depressing piece — victory by local community groups was hard-fought and long in coming, and when it did come, that victory was co-opted by city officials. Sadly, many education advocates in the city and beyond were nodding their heads. These same challenges manifest themselves in education, where systematic disempowerment of Camden residents (and others) means that it’s never enough to win the first battle, and that residents are wary and weary of the effort it takes to have their voice heard. 

I’ll start in the simplest place: an elected school board. 

Camden doesn’t have one. But a careful reading of Howard Gillette’s Camden After the Fall shows that the Camden Board of Education was once among Camden’s most vibrant democratic institutions. While state politics often dictated the city’s hand, in 1996 the Board of Ed was able to strip an insurance contract from a firm supported by the local democratic party and give it to a local, minority firm (though, it’s worth noting, the politically connected firm was also a local minority firm — even if residents were skeptical of its community ties). In response, Board of Education elections became contested — with the local party investing in running their own slate of candidates. Those candidates, through the 2001 elections, failed. So, in 2002, tucked into a wider state takeover bill, state politicians included a provision to convert the school board to an appointed one. Unsurprisingly, once this happened, the insurance contract was returned to the politically-connected firm. With Abbot District funds in the pipeline, the stakes were even higher.

This speaks to the challenge of organizing here in Camden — it is never enough to win a battle, you must also fight the systematic oppression of Camden. It wasn’t enough to elect a community slate of candidates to the Board of Education. It wasn’t enough to give an insurance contract to the community firm. The community also had to deal with a wider Democratic party (let’s give credit where it’s due here — it’s not just Republicans who exploit our urban communities) that is willing to strip power from Camden as a condition of money from the state. And so “order” was returned. 

This past summer, a group of residents and activists tried to remedy the situation. They started a campaign to convert the Board of Education back to an elected board. And they failed — though I suspect they’ve laid the groundwork for a much more effective attempt this summer. There will be significant barriers in that effort. 

The first, and most obvious barrier, is that converting to an elected Board of Education literally changes nothing about how the city is governed. And that is because the appointed board has already been stripped of all its power under a state takeover of the education system. So, right off the bat, activists have a challenge. They don’t have a clear answer to, “so what does this change?” which is the first question any resident will ask. The honest answer is that it is the first step to empowering Camden residents to have control over their education system that has been systematically stripped of them. But it’s a victory that will not show immediate benefits in the formal rule of law (you could argue that an elected board was critical in Newark, because it made it harder to silence opposition — and there is a lot to that — but that board doesn’t have any formal power either). 

Second, the collection of signatures puts this issue on the ballot for residents to vote on rather than changing it directly, meaning a second organizing effort will be necessary once signatures are collected. 

Third, the ballot issue will be about the “type” of Board of Education, not explicitly about whether the board is elected or appointed. Most likely, language won’t include the words “elected board” meaning that it’s up to organizers to educate the community on the stakes of the ballot question (so voters don’t skip it) and also which “type” of Board of Education includes an elected board. This is a big hurdle (and hopefully one that can be addressed in the wording of the question — though I’m not confident). 

Fourth, if history is any guide, once the school board is elected, there will be an uphill climb to organize for candidates — and likely a slate of candidates financially supported by the local Democratic party invested in keeping the status quo.

So let’s review: those trying to reassert a basic right (elected school boards) which has been shown to be a vibrant community institution (by fighting for local contracting of insurance firms) faces the following challenges: signatures to get the issue on the ballot, get out the vote once on the ballot, widespread education to ensure residents understand the ballot issue, then the challenge of winning any of these seats on the board. All of that, and literally nothing of the governance will change — because the education system is taken over by the state anyway. 

It’s easy to see why this is such a tough sell to residents. If you’re working two jobs and have to find child care on your own morning off — are you going to use it to volunteer for this cause? I hope people do, I think it’s a worthy one, and, believe it or not, it’s one of the most “winnable” causes in Camden. But I understand the fatigue. Camden is truly the most oppressive educational system in the country — it has an appointed board AND a state takeover. Fighting that is exhausting. 

These last two posts have been frustrating — both to write, and, for those of us involved in these struggles, to live through. But next week I’m going to pick up with efforts that have seen more direct success, and talk about want links successful causes in the city.