Are New Jersey gentrifiers taking us for a ride?

1934 school bus
1934 Chevrolet Schoolbus by DBerry2006 via Flickr
Believers in gentrification understand neither fairness, nor justice. Yet, since Christie signed bill A-355 into law in 2010, they’ve been provided with yet another powerful arrow in the arsenal of neighborhood destruction and running the vulnerable out of town. This is a racial issue in New Jersey, since our poor are mostly urban Blacks and Latinos.

Christie’s education voucher law allows public school students to attend schools in another district, with your tax dollars paying the receiving school’s tuition fees and the complete bill to, “provide and pay for students’ transportation to new schools up to 20 miles away.” Sounds a bit like specially chartered buses and other things extraordinarily expensive, doesn’t it? Wowza! read more

Dems don’t offer Blacks enough support but GOP is worse

Baratunde Thurston

Friend Bryan Alexander reminded me tonight that Dems take the Black vote entirely for granted. He’s so right. This is probably one of the big reasons that communities of color aren’t getting the help they expected with fighting public school takeovers by charters (Philly) … schools being just closed down (Chicago (where 49 schools were closed in one day – by Dem mayor Rahm Emmanuel) and Newark) and why Dems supported the devious Governor Christie’s 2013 re-election bid instead of getting behind Democratic Party candidate Barbara Buono – a progressive with a long, strong record of promoting excellence in public education, and transparency and accountability in the realm of public service and politics. read more