Whatever happened to the Zuckerberg's $100M 'gift' to Newark schools?

The Hechinger Report carries an interview today, with journalist Dale Russakoff, author of “The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?” The book tells the story of Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million "gift" to Newark Public Schools five years ago.

HR wants to know how the money was spent? A question I've been asking since 2011. Despite a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, we still don't even know exactly how that money was spent except that it was used to create a couple of new privately-run charter schools and that about a third of it was used to pay crony political and educational consultants and contractors through a slush fund set up by former mayor Corey Booker and Gov. Christie. We also know that it provided a nice tax break for Zuckerberg.

Most telling part of the interview is when HR asks Russakoff about former superintendent Cami Anderson’s One Newark plan. She responds:

There are tremendous numbers of parents and teachers in Newark who felt that the schools needed radical change, but there was no acknowledgement that those people should be playing a role in this One Newark process. I asked Cami Anderson about the lack of communication and she said the One Newark plan is, as she kept calling it, 16-dimensional chess, which was a way of saying it’s incredibly complicated. She said if you brought families in, of course every family was going to have some issue and if you fixed that issue you would create an issue for someone else. She felt it was important to make the decisions that she thought were the best for the families and the kids. In doing that, she missed a lot of input that was critical.

Anderson's response to Russakoff goes right to the heart of corporate-style, top-down school reform's failure (even by its own standards of success), it's elitism and lack of transparency. The good news is that the very parents and community activists that Anderson held in such disregard, have run her out of Newark. The bad news is that her replacement is Chris Cerf who helped engineer the whole Zuckerberg affair.

Now that Anderson's gone. Booker's gone, Zuckerberg's gone, Oprah's gone, and Christie's off running for president of the United States, we're all left asking: where did the money go?

Tri-Star charter hustlers banned in N.J., welcomed with open arms in Florida

Gallon, Kemp and Kelly in 2010 court hearing where they are banned from operating charters in N.J.

Former Plainfield superintendent and current charter school hustler Steve Gallon III's company, Tri-Star Leadership has been banned in the state of New Jersey. That in itself is no easy task to accomplish in the state where Gov. Christie has never met a corrupt charter operator he didn't adore. But not to worry for old Steve. Five months later, he and his company were welcomed with open arms in Florida where anyone with a pulse, no matter how corrupt or incompetent, can operate a chain of charter schools and receive millions in support from crony-corporatist Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott's regime.

In May 2010, Gallon was arrested and charged with hiring unqualified friends Angela Kemp and Lalelei Kelly and then lying about their residences so their children could attend schools outside their district. The charges brought against Gallon, Kemp and Kelly were dropped in January 2011 after the three agreed to serve probation and to never work in the New Jersey public school system again.

Just over a year after Gallon was hired to operate schools in South Florida, he rehired Kelly to work as a consultant and then hired Kemp to be the principal at Excel Leadership Academy in Palm Beach County.

Gallon then took up where he left off in N.J., making payroll decisions without prior authorization from the charter schools’ governing boards, drawing rebukes from the schools’ financial consultants. He hired a $40,000-a-year consultant who listed her residence as a Georgia home owned by Gallon. He launched a business venture with one of the volunteer board members responsible for overseeing Gallon’s work for the charter schools. The venture was later deemed a conflict of interest by Miami-Dade school district investigators. At least three consultants contracted by the governing boards warned their bosses of inappropriate actions under Gallon, records show. Yet Gallon stayed on as those who complained quit — or were fired.

Excel Leadership Academy in Palm Beach

Success Leadership Academy in Ft. Lauderdale and Excel Leadership Academy in West Palm Beach closed in the summer of 2013. Stellar Leadership Academy in Miami faced financial struggles but rebounded and continues to employ Gallon’s company. All three high schools for at-risk students were already reeling when their boards hired Gallon. The schools opened in 2005 under a private management company that selected the original board members and handled all school operations, from real estate and payroll to busing and curriculum. That company, White Hat Management, the most corrupt of a host of Ohio-based charter management companies, had operated a number of charter schools throughout Florida until they began pulling out of the state in 2011.

According to the Sun-Sentinel:

State statutes governing the conduct of public officials do not apply to the private operators that often gain power at charter schools, even though public money is at stake.
Both traditional public schools and charter schools receive public dollars based on their enrollment, and don’t charge tuition. Administrators at traditional public schools are accountable for every penny spent. But the private companies hired by many charter school governing boards don’t have to open their books.

And so it goes.

Why Cerf jumped ship in N.J.

Cerf bails on Christie

If Jersey Jazzman tells me that the Christie's Bridgegate scandal has nothing to do with the timing of Chris Cerf's jumping ship and heading for Murdoch (see comments) I believe him. There's no one who knows N.J. ed politics better than JJ.

I never meant to imply that the bridge scandal and Christie's zero chances of running for president in 2016 were the main reasons, anyway. We all know by now what drives guys like Cerf. Like his former boss, Joel Klein, who left his post as Bloomberg's school chief in N.Y. for Murdoch's greener pastures, only to return with Amplify contracts in hand, Cerf has dollar signs in his eyes.

UNION RESPONDS

NJEA Pres.Wendell Steinhauer expressed concerns that Cerf’s new position will allow him to profit from the “misguided mandates” he has brought to New Jersey schools, including the new teacher evaluation system linked to upcoming PARCC standardized tests.

“While it is clearly a very good career move for Commissioner Cerf, he leaves New Jersey at a time when schools, educators and students are struggling with these new mandates. As a result of his rush to impose costly and unproven high-stakes testing in New Jersey, districts are spending money they don’t have to implement testing they do not need,” Steinhauer said in a statement released today. “Educators are being subjected to a poorly understood and badly implemented evaluation system that relies far too heavily on the kind of costly assessment and student data systems that Mr. Cerf’s new employer helps districts implement, for a cost.”

I don't know, but I think "concern" may be to soft a word here. It's this revolving door between the ed bureaucracy and ed corporate complex that makes the Ownership Society's wheels go round.

HILARIOUS CHRISTIE

Funniest moment (as least for me) came yesterday during Christie's visit to Chicago on a fundraising trip for the RGA, when he blamed his Bridgegate scandal on the "lack of civility" in Washington. Does he think we've forgotten? In case you have, here's a reminder:

 I can use a lot of words for Washington D.C. ‘civilized’ would not be one of them.” -- Chris Christie 

The "norm" for Zuckerberg schools in Newark

Gov. Christie, Mayor Booker, and Mark Zuckerberg announced on "Oprah" a $100 million donation by Zuckerberg for Newark schools.

Some of the $100 million of Mark Zuckerberg's gift to Newark Public Schools finally made it to the school house. The money was used to create a couple of new charter schools. No surprise there. What is interesting -- the media is playing up the small class sizes in the new schools.

At Newark Leadership Academy, she [student Lacha Young] found new books, an enthusiastic new principal, teachers with time for tutoring and small classes with as few as five students. -- Star Ledger

But I thought small class size didn't matter. At least that's what N.J. officials and Arne Duncan himself, were arguing just a few weeks ago.

What’s more, small class sizes are out of favor with officials like Governor Chris Christie and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who insist teacher quality matters more than class size when it comes to student achievement. That has many New Jersey parents and teachers concerned that the state is headed back to the days when large classes were the norm. -- New Jersey Monthly

The "norm," yes for public schools. But obviously not the norm for Zuckerberg schools. 

Public schools shouldn't depend on handouts from billionaires

From the New York Times:

Although praiseworthy as a matter of personal philanthropy, the donation by the mayor and the others, whose names were not disclosed, is highly distressing as a matter of public policy. It is disgraceful that essential components of our public education system now depend on the charitable impulses of wealthy citizens.

A number of judges have begun to respond to the devastation in state education financing: in May, the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered Gov. Chris Christie and the Legislature to reinstate $500 million in funds for poor urban districts, and last month, a North Carolina judge blocked cuts that would have decimated financing for a statewide preschool program. -- When schools depend on handouts

Related: NYT, 8/3/11, Private Donors, Including Mayor, Save January Regents 

Over the last several weeks, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made a series of unusual fund-raising calls to a handful of wealthy New Yorkers. Would they be willing, he asked, to chip in $250,000 each to save some standardized tests?

Where did that Zuckerberg money go?

Remember Mark Zuckerberg's $100M gift to Newark Public Schools. Hey Mayor Booker, Gov. Christie -- Where'd the money go?  Public wants to know. ACLU files suit. But Booker acts outraged that anyone would dare to ask. He claims, "there are no documents."

Excuse me!

"As parents, as taxpayers and as citizens, we have a need and right to know how the money pledged to Newark’s public schools will ultimately serve Newark’s public school students," said Laura Baker, the grandmother of a Newark public school student who filed the initial OPRA request on behalf of the Secondary Parents Council, a 30-year-old group of Newark parents and grandparents. -- Star Ledger

Powerful Dem backs N.J. T-Party gov's school voucher program

In an interview after the ceremony, Norcross said his interest in school choice was borne of moral obligation and old-fashioned capitalism. -- Star Ledger

High-powered Dem, George E. Norcross III rushed to Gov. Christie's side in the wake of the N.J. gov's chopper scandal. The billionaire insurance mogul who also sits on the Democratic National Committee, came out at a Camden rally and locked arms with the T-Party gov in support of his OSA school voucher plan for New Jersey. Sitting alongside Christie and Norcross was a who's who of the school "choice" (voucher) movement: Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf and several executives representing Excellent Education for Everyone, or E3.

"Cooper Hospital and my family's foundation are going to be involved in several new charter schools in the city of Camden," Norcross announced. He had previously signaled interest in establishing a new charter school in Camden, but Friday was the first time he stated definitively and in public that the wheels were already in motion. -- Courier Post

Besides being chairman of the board at Cooper Hospital, Norcross is actively involved in the redevelopment of Camden's Lanning Square neighborhood. A new cancer institution and teaching hospital are among the major facilities already under way.