The Jaffe Briefing - April 27, 2022

STATEWIDE – While all the wealthy enclaves of New Jersey celebrate the latest rankings of U.S. News, chest-thumping about how their local high school is elite in the state and perhaps the nation, the real focus should be the bottom of the barrel, the real dregs among public education in New Jersey, where college readiness is about as rare as an AP class. It is certainly not funny, and a real call to action, when you see the same high schools, year after year, ranked near-last. Rather than call out the absolute worst high school in New Jersey, U.S. News just leaves the same ol’ batch as ranked between 357 and 406. And they are the same anemic schools, based in the same cities, like Newark, Camden, Trenton, Plainfield, Paterson, Willingboro and Asbury Park – aspiring for mediocrity, as one generation fails the next, over and over.

STATEWIDE – Haves and have-nots are further evident in the latest state data, showing a stark contrast amongst high school kids taking AP or IB tests. The state is now breaking down the data by race, Chalkbeat reports, and the results are both alarming and completely expected. Data shows just 19% of Black students and 23% of Hispanic students took at least one AP or IB class last year. By contrast, 41% of white students and 68% of Asian students enrolled in one or more of those advanced courses. Chalkbeat looks no further than glaringly hyper-segregated Essex County to draw obvious conclusions. In leafy Livingston, 76% of 11th and 12th graders took at least one advanced course last year, compared with only 12% in urban Irvington. Yet some still don’t see any issue in what has become the most unsolved quandary in the state.

BRIEFING BREATHER

Around 16 million people alive today are direct descendants of Genghis Khan.

TRENTON – New Jersey is desperate for more judges, as the backlog for justice just seems to grow with no relief in sight. NJ Spotlight reports the Superior Court is looking at a record of 75 vacancies by Sunday, while more than 7,000 defendants sit in jail, awaiting their day of justice before an actual real-life judge. The state’s backlog of cases has hit more than 87,000, compared with “just” 22,000 in 2020. The issue was front and center at a recent Assembly Budget Committee, which was sympathetic and all, but the issue sits at the governor’s door, as he makes the judicial nominations. Meanwhile, the number of judicial vacancies will likely swell to more the 100 by the end of the year, as the governor’s office maintains that dozens of nominees are actively being vetted. Meanwhile, people sit in prison, waiting.

IN THE MEDIA

ASBURY PARK – The former editorial page editor of the Asbury Park Press – laid off after 18 years on the job – tells New Jersey Globe that he stopped into a Wawa last week to pick up a newspaper. The New York Post was sold out; so was the New York Daily News, the New York Times and the Trenton Times. His only option? The Asbury Park Press.  “When I handed the clerk two dollar bills … I was stunned when she held her hand out asking for more,” Randy Bergmann said. He recalled the brief conversation. “How much is it?” I asked. “$3.45,” she said. “I was stunned,” he said, adding the price was impossible to find in all that small type. With only seven local byline stories in the day’s paper, you could quickly see why Gannett is hiding it. “If the goal is to eliminate print and newsstand subscribers, the Press’ pricing policies can only be seen as a rousing success,” Bergmann said.  “It has certainly succeeded in discouraging me from ever buying another copy.”

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND – You spend plenty of time fretting about the proper use of the apostrophe. So do we. Together, we are memorializing John Richards, a British newspaperman who is considered the “King of the Apostrophe.” The world is now marking the one-year anniversary of his death, at 97. His passion was hyper-focused on the apostrophe – and the infatuation that it be used correctly, dammit. He even created the “Apostrophe Protection Society” to fight the “barbarians” attacking a punctuation mark that is a “poor defenseless creature,” the Washington Post reports. His life’s work identified and shamed chronic apostrophe abusers, such as the clown who first wrote, “Diamond’s are Forever,” or “New’s and Magazines,” or, the absolute worst infraction: “Tattoo’s.” Today, again, we salute “Richards’s” or, um, “Richards’” commitment to the apostrophe.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

It was this day in 2014 that Pope Francis canonizes both John XXIII and John Paul II: a special twofer toward sainthood.

WORD OF THE DAY

Epicure – [EP-ih-kyur] – noun

Definition: One with sensitive and discriminating tastes, especially in food or wine

Example: As I make my kid yet another a grilled cheese, I consider myself a home-based epicure.

WIT OF THE DAY

“A gun is no more dangerous than a cricket bat in the hands of a madman.”

-Prince Philip

BIDEN BLURB

"Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door."

-Joe Biden

WEATHER IN A WORD

Whipping