What the Fight For Camden(NJ) Schools Truly is…(a Struggle for Our Survival)

For the past few years, since roughly 2013, I’ve been obsessed with the redevelopment plan unleashed on Camden, dubbed Camden Rising. I’ve been so fixated on Camden Rising and what it means for this city, that I conducted research for my doctoral dissertation on it (available here), as well as published a book Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising based on my dissertation. What I’ve tried to do through presentations, op/eds, articles, and interviews over the years, was to share with my Camden neighbors and the broader public what Camden Rising is: a redevelopment plan created by George Norcross, specifically (with the help of his lawyer brother Phillip, and his other lawmaker brother Donald, and sustained through NJ law with the help of George Norcross’ childhood friend, State Senate President Steve Sweeney and political crony, Chris Christie), intended precisely to remove swaths of Camden’s current population. Locally, the Camden Rising plan has been supported fully by County Commissioners, namely Louis Cappelli, and the city democratic power structure from Camden mayors Dana Redd and Frank Moran, down to city councilpersons.

The guiding principle behind Camden Rising is this: because of a lack of jobs, city violence, and a “failing” education system, Camden can never “rise” because more affluent, middle class potential residents will never move to Camden so long as those “realities” exist. While on the surface those claims seem mildly defensible particularly to non-Camden residents and NJ suburbanites, what Norcross’ Camden Rising plan, that has been yes-manned by his underlings for nearly eight years and running, is asserting is essentially this: Camden’s residents are the problem, and what is required is a consistent and significant public relations campaign that airbrushes images of Camden “progress”. The image of Camden as a safer, economically viable city with an improved education system that at one time kept white middle class millennials away, is now safe and waiting potential sought-after residents’ arrival with open arms. In the mind of Norcross and company, Camden’s young, low-income minority population was, and still is, the hinderance to a municipal resurgence, and thus, the numbers of current Camden residents must be systematically reduced, and replaced by younger, wealthier, and whiter individuals. That is Camden Rising; a fancy name for a Manifest Destiny style land-grab where those with the least financial and political power to resist, are rolled over by those who have plenty of both. And as disgusting as Norcross’ prevailing thesis behind Camden Rising is, what perhaps is most disgusting and infuriating, is that locally at least, he has legions of quasi-connected Black and Latino current and former residents lining up to parrot his message, despite how harmful it is to the lot of us regular folk.

What makes Camden Rising’s playbook of orchestrated land acquisition by dispossession so dangerous is that Camden is one of the few affordable areas in New Jersey left where people who do not make a lot of money, can still afford to live. What will become of current residents who are languishing on the economic margins if they are banished to unfamiliar and remote suburbs and exburbs? The city’s access to public transportation, nearby location to Philadelphia, connection and access to social services, helps make Camden livable for folks who find themselves in economically tenuous realities. Additionally, the city is filled with families who’ve literally resided here for generations, making Camden the primary home-city to  families going back to the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. The established support networks dating back nearly half a century or longer cannot be replaced, and are invaluable to many. Camden, despite its many imperfections, makes life easier for its many present-day residents. Still, the push to separate Camden residents from their city moves forward largely unobstructed by local politicians who look like us, but have calculated that the way for them to “make it”, is to play along impotently because, “you know they gonna do what they wanna do anyway.” (Ironically, it never seems to occur to Camden’s colored politicos who seem to have at least some institutional power, that they themselves constitute the “they”, they commonly reference.)

All of this brings us to the current resistance many Camden parents are waging now; the battle to maintain our public schools. Virtually every year, the Camden City School District publicly announces a plan to shutter our public schools and potentially displace hundreds of students from the educational homes they’ve grown with. This is no accident, nor is it an organic occurrence but, as referenced above, connected to Camden Rising’s land grab. What is consistent throughout most urban development literature is that urban public schools depress land value (or keep urban land affordable for residents) because such schools are attended by low-income students of color – the specific kind of student middle class white and Black families don’t what their child educated next to. But, once urban public schools are collapsed and are replaced with selective or boutique charter schools, but in Camden’s case, renaissance schools, the property values and rental rates begin to climb. And as the price of housing steadily begins to climb, low-income families are gradually priced out before finally being displaced.

The specific plan to systematically close Camden’s public school goes back to 2011 was drafted by Bing Howell (available upon request) and was a precursor and a blueprint to the Urban Hope Act of 2012. Explicitly and clearly, the plan called for the closure of 7-10 Camden public schools and an increase of publicly funded non-public schools, i.e., charter or renaissance schools. Thus when we, educators and community members are taking to the streets in 2021 to protect Camden’s public schools, what actually and more fully is taking place, is residents are standing up for their schools as a way to protect their children, and their homes. Need proof, simply note who are the people taking to the streets to defend Camden public education, and keeping schools open year after year – residents, parents, and educators. At the same time, “google” the names of the people who are tacitly championing Camden’s public school closure. Near unanimously, the crowd expressing approval of the closures either benefit financially from the largesse of billionaire education reformers who favor more privatization and weakened teacher unions, or are personally affiliated with Norcross’ local democratic power structure.

And so here we residents are, fighting for the survival of our schools, and by extension, fighting for our right to continue to exist here against the will of Big Money and Big Camden Politics. This is our fight; and public education just happens to be the current battleground. While there is no telling how this will play out in the final analysis, this is an interesting case study for how residents and educators, with no other political or financial power to lean on, wage battle against an opposition with plenty of money and political levers to pull at its disposal. And, despite not knowing this situation’s outcome, this is the story. The current fight for our public schools is much larger than a siloed education issue, and more complex than the simplistic framing its received in the media thus far. This fight for our schools is about the future of this city; who’s allowed to stay here, who’s invited to live here, and who is rendered expendable. It’s about time the battle public education in Camden is properly contextualized, and it is my hope that since you’ve made it down the article this far, that you too can begin to understand what our fight for the survival of our public schools truly is – a struggle for survival.