On Verge of Takeover, Newark Rebuts Critical State Analysis

By Karen Diegmueller

Taking an aggressive stance against efforts by the state of New Jersey to seize control of their school district, Newark officials last week released a point-by-point rebuttal of a sharply critical analysis of the district issued by the state education department in May.

The state's "external review'' led Commissioner of Education Mary Lee Fitzgerald to order a comprehensive compliance investigation--the last step in the lengthy process by which the state could take over the largest district in New Jersey. (See Education Week, May 19, 1993.)

The state review portrayed a district in which politics, safe employment, and the pursuit of outside funding took precedence over...