Murphy is an Optimist
By: Julie Harding
Tags: Inequality, Education, School Reopen, New Jersey, Phil Murphy

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Last Wednesday, Governor Murphy announced that New Jersey schools could open remotely if they were unable to certify the safety standards in the school re-opening checklist released by the NJDOE. This was not a huge surprise. Following his unequivocal statement in June that schools must provide for in-person instruction in the fall, I — a career educator and mother of two boys enrolled in New Jersey’s public schools — expected him to grant districts more leeway before he made any sort of move toward state-mandated closings.

And so he has.

Murphy’s King Solomon-like decision looks and sounds good in theory. Schools are traditionally locally controlled, with largely democratically elected governing bodies. The transmission rates of COVID-19 vary widely in each community, as does the infrastructure that would either enable school opening or necessitate school closing.

In practice, though, this is not a King Solomon decision; this is Murphy’s Law. Murphy may be an optimist, but it’s more likely that everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, than that the wise ancient King would actually split the baby.

The problem with Murphy’s announcement was evident even before he made it. About a dozen districts in the state had announced plans to open remotely even before it was technically allowed, Elizabeth, Passaic, Jersey City, Bayonne, New Brunswick, and Trenton among them.

“These districts are overwhelmingly poor, urban, and minority, earning the designation of “A” among New Jersey’s District Factor groupings, a system which measures the socioeconomic status of a school district by considering occupation, education, income, and other factors, of residents.”

Since Murphy acknowledged the need for remote openings last Wednesday, the disparity has gotten even worse. Approximately 140 districts of New Jersey’s 584 districts have announced at least preliminary plans to start remotely. Many of these districts are overwhelmingly poor, urban, and minority, earning the designation of “A” among New Jersey’s District Factor groupings, a system which measures the socioeconomic status of a school district by considering occupation, education, income, and other factors, of residents. Each district receives a designation of “A,” at the lowest end of the socioeconomic spectrum, all the way to “J,” at the highest. At one time, the thirty-five “A” districts were also known as “Abbott” districts, from the New Jersey court case, Abbott v. Burke, which installed a mechanism to ensure equivalent funding between the Abbott districts and their wealthier peers, the twenty-five “J” districts, like Alpine, Millburn, and Upper Saddle River.

Of the districts that have announced an all-virtual reopening plans, nineteen — including Newark, Camden, Paterson, Perth Amboy, Jersey City, Elizabeth, and Trenton — are “A” districts; an additional nine — including Bayonne and Plainfield — are “B” districts. Combined, these twenty-eight districts serve over 300,000 of New Jersey’s 1.37 million schoolchildren, most of whom who are among the state’s neediest.

On the other hand, students in wealthier districts, like “I” and “J” districts — who are more likely to have educated parents with higher household incomes, access to childcare and technology— are now more likely to have access to live, in-person instruction as well. Only four “I” districts have submitted plans to open remotely: Scotch Plains-Fanwood, South Orange-Maplewood, Hillsborough, and South Brunswick. None of the “J” districts — the state’s wealthiest — have submitted similar requests.

Many factors contribute to this correlation. For one, there are matters of space. These districts are more likely to be overcrowded and have larger class sizes, and older buildings with antiquated ventilation systems, all of which cause a problem preventing the spread of COVID-19. There are also issues related to the rights of union employees under collectively bargained contracts. Poorer districts tend to have stronger unions, which translates to better protections. But before we lay this at the feet of the NJEA, remember the challenges faced by those who choose to teach in the poorer, more urban districts — including increased disciplinary issues, less parental involvement, gang violence, chronic absenteeism, lack of supplies, charters taking the best students, etc. — and realize that union benefits — including job protections and higher wages — are often the only things that compel teachers to take jobs in those districts and stay, rather than leaving for a cushier gig in a suburban district.

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

Despite sustaining vocal criticism, the union is only one factor leading to the virtual opening of these districts. The other, more consistent analysis points to the a comparative analysis between our disadvantaged A-districts and B-districts and their wealthier peers, the I-Districts and the rarified J-Districts. Clearly, in this circumstance, wealth equals access.

This obviously unequal circumstance is certain to exacerbate the issues of equity in education that have dogged the state of New Jersey for decades, evidenced by the afore-mentioned Abbott v. Burke of 1975, but also by the lawsuit against the DOE by several advocacy groups including the NAACP and the United Methodist Church, and by Murphy’s recent pledge to use federal grant money to close the virtual learning gap in the state.

Murphy’s refusal to issue a single statement on the closure of school buildings has effectively widened the gap between rich and poor students in New Jersey.

Some have asserted that online learning was a complete failure, and yet Murphy consigns the neediest students to an inferior education while wealthy parents pack Board Meetings to lobby buildings to re-open. In addition, some of the most compelling arguments about reopening schools have related to the services they provide — meals; counseling; identification of domestic violence, child abuse and neglect; wraparound care — all of which serve our disadvantaged minority students.

As of right now, more affluent families have the option to attend school in-person, or to stay home and school remotely with supports such as supervision and tutoring — even expensive private teachers and bougie educational “pods.” This would perpetuate the achievement gap between our demographic groups, perhaps causing students to lose out on tens of thousands of dollars of earnings per decade.

Besides the meme-worthy, absurd hypocrisy of Murphy’s decision-making (“keep restaurants closed, but open schools”; “you can’t pack more than 500 people into a building unless you call it a school”), at the bottom of this decision are overtly anti-democratic values. Why? Because the truth is that the issue of closing schools is a political hot potato, and Murphy neither wants to own it, nor does he want to break ranks with Big Brother Cuomo in New York.

Our Governor Murphy is an optimist. And so, unless he changes course again soon, we may need to change our state motto: New Jersey, Where Everything That Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong.