Lots of things I’m hoping to write about over the next few days (want to touch on the Cherry Hill school funding activism, the methadone clinic, some broader thoughts on the Camden County Democratic Party, and maybe, maaaaybe get to Camden High), but first some spin-offs from yesterdays discussion about the proposed closing of Sharp Elementary. 

It’s not surprising that yesterday’s post (like the board meeting before it) took off, or that it evokes strong reactions. My research on urban social movements (both in New Orleans and here in Camden) shows that communities often respond and ramp up activism when institutions are threatened (and do so in ways that are more immediate and more urgent than when a policy creates a general threat). You don’t have to be politically active to know you don’t want your child to have to change schools, or you want to keep a school you know and love in your neighborhood. 

A corollary of this is that community members often have to take extreme measures to get noticed. We discuss this quite a bit in my class, where students are taken aback by aggressive language towards public officials. But being polite, when you have no power, rarely works. Camden residents have tried collecting signatures, showing up to board meetings, protesting, all to little effect. Sometimes, rocking the boat (something I call creative coercion in my academic work) is the only way to build influence.

That said, I remain very uncomfortable with the attacks of individuals testifying for Parents for Great Family Schools — particularly those that yell at charter parents and ask them if they liked the money they were paid to testify (I’ve been unable to confirm rumors that these payments actually happen in Camden, though I’ve heard similar stories in other NJ cities).

This strikes me as both unkind and bad strategy. In the past, with activists I have a relationship with, I’ve spoken about the ways I find these strategies distasteful. Frankly, I find these attacks to be both unkind and bad strategy, even if I sympathize with the frustration of those making the attacks.

I don’t particularly have anything against yelling or disruption as strategy. Sometimes those tools are necessary. But I do think that attacking fellow Camden parents is ultimately very counterproductive. First of all, many of these parents are engaging politically for the first time. Their first experience is going to be that of being attacked by fellow residents (and, defended by the school district). That more deeply divides Camden’s community. 

But I’m also not particularly flustered at the idea of a parent receiving $25 to go to board meetings. I understand that for those who have long attended these meetings, and have never been paid, this seems terribly unfair. But payments also reflect the difficult choices that many parents need to make in Camden. Going to a board meeting is a brutal task, particularly for single parents. The meeting starts at 5:30pm, but the board will often go unannounced into closed session. You need to be there early to get a good slot for public comment, which happens at the end of the meeting and can drag on past 9pm. That may mean, for a parent, getting a full evening worth of childcare. It may mean taking a shift off of work if you work multiple jobs, one of which is in the evening. It may mean eating out, because there is not time to cook between work and the meeting. And it may mean taking a cab home because you do not feel like the bus system is safe (or runs often enough at that hour) to get you home that late at night. 

Which is all to say, repeatedly attending community meetings is quite a drain on time and resources, and is even more so on those without cars or money for child care. If a charter school (for its own selfish reasons) can help defray these costs, and help parents to be civically engaged, I’m ok with it. Even if that means paying parents a stipend to go to meetings.

There is interpretation involved in understanding why and when people show up to board meetings and what they say. It is fraught with subjectivity. It’s one of the reasons it’s a shame that actual voting rights have been stripped of Camden residents; it’s so difficult without them (and often, even with them) to understand what communities want and believe. We can understand the complications of certain schools providing incentives to attend a board meeting for political purposes. But I don’t believe the best reaction should be to attack the charter parents at the front of that effort who are trying to make a way for their children in a complicated world. 

A second, smaller, point from the meeting that I wanted to touch on (and came out in our Facebook discussion yesterday) was made by a resident who had seen Parkside Elementary School close. This parent supported the “merger” then with Hatch, only to watch as the school slowly lost its identity and staff through the merger. 

This is important. What’s happening in Camden is not new — we are already on the second or third generation of education reform in the city. A few years ago, at the Urban Affairs Conference, I saw research that showed in Chicago, families who had supported a school closure in their neighborhood are much less likely to do so a second time. Which is to say, that promises made to communities about school closures and school takeovers rarely end up as rosy as they sound, and parents are more likely to oppose closings as the process continues. 

There’s going to be a lot of this in Camden. As families become more familiar with the way school closings play out in their community, these battles will become more and more contentious. But let’s not make it Camden parent v. Camden parent. I hope we can fight unjust policy without attacking parents trying to make their way, best they can, through a difficult world.