Dale Russakoff's The Prize and How Corporate School Reform Failed in Newark
Dale Russakoff's The Prize is a wonderful account of the way that Cory Booker, Chris Christie, Christopher Cerf, Cami Anderson and other corporate reformers largely squandered the $200 million opportunity created by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to improve the Newark schools. The subtitle of this invaluable book is "Who's In Charge of America's Schools?"
By now, most people interested in education policy are aware of The Prize and its main themes of hubris, and what happened when elites jumped in, imposed their opinions on others (who they knew nothing about), ignored social science and history, and refused to listen to the community or the professionals who they sought to transform. And they did so without even bothering to formulate anything resembling a plan.
When a plan was finally devised, its competition-driven, reward and punish approach was given the unintentionally ironic title of One Newark.
As Russakoff concludes, "For four years, the reformers never really tried to have a conversation with the people of Newark. Their target audience was always somewhere else." Elite reformers were seeking "a national proof point" which would demonstrate how they could provide incentives and disincentives to solve society's problems. As one reformer from the NewSchools Venture Fund explained, the new edu-philanthropy sector "understands leverage. If you get education right, you're going get people jobs, reduce incarceration, et cetera. So the idea is to help people analyze what's not working and inspire entrepreneurs to solve problems."
One of the many great things about The Prize is the way that Russakoff borrows the terminology of educators and reformers to explain both the facts of urban life and the scholarship that reformers dismissed, as well as the mentality that allowed them to be so destructively obstinate. One of the most quotable characters is the past and current czar of other people's schools, Christopher Cerf.
One of the many great things about The Prize is the way that Russakoff borrows the terminology of educators and reformers to explain both the facts of urban life and the scholarship that reformers dismissed, as well as the mentality that allowed them to be so destructively obstinate. One of the most quotable characters is the past and current czar of other people's schools, Christopher Cerf.
Cerf touted himself as the New York City schools' "chief of transformation." Working for the NYC Chancellor Joel Klein, who embodied the hurried, slash and burn style of school improvement, Cerf learned that the search for consensus was part of the problem. The stacking of casualties was part of the solution, and central to meeting his self-proclaimed "altruistic" goal. Cerf came to Newark to manage its schools because that troubled system "was a perfect test." Transformative change was possible because it had long been under state control and "we still control all the levers."
Weirdly, Cerf also spoke in opposition to "top-down, prescriptive policies" blaming them on bureaucracies. It is hard to square that ubiquitous reform soundbite with Cerf's other statement:
Weirdly, Cerf also spoke in opposition to "top-down, prescriptive policies" blaming them on bureaucracies. It is hard to square that ubiquitous reform soundbite with Cerf's other statement:
We can't have any more talks about respecting the community. Who is the Dale Russakoff's The Prize and How Corporate School Reform Failed in Newark | John Thompson:
