Newark Chapter 5: The Zuckerberg Gift

It was an announcement like no other.

Its origins were an unusual alliance across political divide featuring strange bedfellows with rapport strong enough to generate odd artifacts, including a parody video …

… where the partners feigned …

… deep mockery …

… of one another’s hubristic tendencies.

Added to the mix was a media powerhouse, who had used her platform repeatedly to highlight the need for improved public education in the United States …

… even visiting some of the charter school movement’s most successful schools with other highly influential people …

… a person whose presence was such that, within two months of the announcement, she was named to be among the 25 most influential women of the past century.

Finally, there was one of the most successful young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley …

… who would receive his own recognition from Time Magazine before the year was out.

Coming together as only that unique mix could, the group made headlines …

… across the country …

… and indeed …

… across …

… the planet.

A philanthropic contribution of unprecedented scope was coming to Newark, sparking new discussions about the possible.

Much of the early response to the announcement focused on the unprecedented bi-partisanship behind it.

Indeed, it was Oprah …

… who offered the first observations along these lines during the broadcast itself.

I think that is so fantastic. In this age of red states and blue states and everybody being so partisan about everything, the fact that you all would come together …

Soon other prominent commentators were chiming in.

The real news wasn’t just the money; it was the surprising across-the-aisle partnership on education reform between two of the nation’s brightest rising political stars.

In a time of poisonous party polarization, Christie and Booker are becoming a constructive model of cooperation.

Within a few months of the announcement, the unusual partnership had promoted a new New Jersey State Commissioner of Education …

… and a few months after, they had a new superintendent in place.

Cami Anderson came from having served as the Executive Director at Teach For America in New York City and as the Superintendent of Alternative High schools in the New York City Department of Education. Cerf had held a number of senior leadership positions in public education, including serving as a lead architect of the aggressive education reform efforts of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Both were experienced and aggressive leaders who knew well the rough and tumble challenges of urban education politics that awaited them. Anderson hadn’t been in her position a month before controversy began swirling around plans for use of the Zuckerberg funding.

The controversy arising in Newark happened against a backdrop of unprecedented acrimony occurring at the state level …

… between Christie and the New Jersey Education Association. Stepping straight into that maelstrom, Cerf spent his first months on the job driving the Christie administration’s efforts to overhaul New Jersey’s teacher evaluation and tenure law …

…the oldest such law in the nation.

A few months after the proposal was introduced, it was clear that the union’s strength in the legislature would prevent the governor from advancing most of the reforms he sought. In the end, he signed a bill …

… that Cerf himself had described as “a terrible disappointment,” one that made only modest changes to the state’s teacher evaluation statutes but essentially left in place most state law regarding tenure and seniority.

Meanwhile, Anderson hit the ground running in Newark …