Governor Christie has come to Camden to offer his own proscription for the city and more specifically for what he calls its “failure factories,” (AKA public schools). His proscription for Camden and cities like is the introduction of privately-run “transformation schools.”  The idea is certainly not new, having been tried in a number of places, including Pennsylvania over the past decade, with only limited success. In Camden’s particular situation, with the chief power broker of South Jersey, George Norcross, ready to help in conjunction with the revitalization effort around Cooper Hospital, where he is chairman of the board, such a school might help. Any concerted effort to help kids in Camden should be welcome. The larger issue will remain, however. As long as kids attend schools in Camden and elsewhere in pockets of concentrated poverty, the obstacles to their educational success will remain immense. Poor kids do better in schools with middle class peers. Seeking better schooling, many lower income families seek housing opportunities outside their cities. And yet the limited amount of affordable housing in suburbs with good schools restricts their options.

Governor Christie likes to say he would never have been able to rise to the state’s highest public office had his family not moved out of Newark.  Yet even as he makes that point, he is making it harder for today’s inner city kids to follow his example by doing everything he can to undercut the affordable housing mandate put forth by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the Mount Laurel decisions requiring every jurisdiction to provide its “fair share of affordable housing.”  The opportunity structure, for good housing and schools as well as employment, long ago shifted from cities to suburbs. We need reinvestment in cities and should applaud it. But as long as regional development and the opportunities that come with it remains skewed in favor of suburbs, we ought not expect a palliative like a “transformation school” to even the balance.  Poverty needs to be addressed on a metropolitan scale, and until that is done effectively urban residents in beleaguered cities like Camden will continue to fall behind, however innovative the educational proscriptions its children are offered.