Abstract
On March 25, 2013, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that the state would take over the Camden City School District. Under state takeover, the Camden school board was relegated to advisory status to a state-appointed superintendent, who reported directly to the state commissioner of education and assumed the powers customarily held by the board of education. Over the subsequent eight years, the state implemented substantial changes in the district, including closing eleven public schools, eliminating more than a thousand teaching and non-teaching positions, and shifting almost half of all district students to renaissance schools, which are managed by three charter school networks under long-term contracts with the district. We examine the impact of the state takeover on students’ standardized test scores, the criteria used most consistently by Camden’s superintendents to gauge performance. The analysis finds no evidence that state control of the district improved standardized test scores in Camden.