Book Review: Newark and Education Reform in Dale Russakoff's "The Prize"

Newark, New Jersey burst onto the national education policy scene in 2010 when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg pledged $100 million to support efforts to reform and rebuild the city's troubled schools. Five years later, improbably, that unexpected cash infusion has been spent, the city's education politics are deeply divided, and the schools continue to struggle. Dale Russakoff's new book, The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools? explains the grand experiment's collapse. In a review for The 74 Million, I trace out the many, many ways that Newark went wrong—and what we ought to learn from the experience.

Newark’s education conflagration is unique. “The Prize” tracks Newark’s last five punchdrunk years converting a promising opportunity into one of the roughest recent reform battles in American education. It all started with a windfall: An Oprah-announced, five-year, $100 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (a sum local donors would eventually match).

And Newark’s good fortune didn’t end with the sudden cash infusion. Russakoff opens the book on a dark and stormy night, with two politicians sliding through a rough part of town talking education policy. One is New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie — who Russakoff calls an "overlord" of the city’s schools (the state seized control of the chronically struggling and corruption-ridden district in 1995). The other is Newark’s then-mayor Democrat Cory Booker, a “gregarious and charismatic...honors student” boasting a “golden résumé.”

That’s one hell of a starting point. It’s the sort of opportunity that would have most urban districts salivating. Zuckerberg, Christie, and Booker certainly saw it as a chance to develop a model for other struggling urban school systems to follow.

And yet, five years after Newark’s chance carpe diem moment, the reform efforts have generated far more heat than light.

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