The real story: Why Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to Newark schools was announced on Oprah’s show
Dale Russakoff is a former Washington Post reporter and the author of a new book called “The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?” It is an in-depth look at what happened when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 made a $100 million matching gift to reform the long-troubled school system in Newark, New Jersey. The announcement was made not to Newark residents but, rather, on an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s former talk show, with Newark’s then-mayor, Democrat Cory Booker, and Republican N.J. Gov. Chris Christie sitting along with Zuckerberg and Winfrey.
Russakoff details what happened with the money and how, in the end, students wound up the big losers in the school reform philanthropy game. The following portion of the book reveals the behind-the-scene maneuvering surrounding the announcement of Zuckerberg’s gift to Newark schools (which has long been under state control). This excerpt starts with Booker alerting Christie to the coming gift.
(Excerpted from THE PRIZE: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? by Dale Russakoff. Copyright © 2015 by Dale Russakoff. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.)
Here’s the excerpt:
In late summer 2010, [Cory] Booker called [Chris] Christie with the $100 million news. “I didn’t believe it,” Christie recalled. “I said, ‘Come on, really?’ he said, ‘Governor, I believe I can close this deal. I really do. I need you, though.’”Booker asked Christie to grant him control of the schools by fiat, but the governor demurred, offering him instead a role as unofficial partner in all decisions and policies, beginning with their joint selection of a “superstar” superintendent to lead the charge. Booker’s first choice was John King, then deputy New York State education commissioner, who had led some of the top-performing charter schools in New York City and Boston and who credited public school teachers with inspiring him to persevere after he was orphaned as a young boy in Brooklyn. [Mark] Zuckerberg and [his wife Priscilla] Chan flew King to Palo Alto for a weekend with them and [Facebook executive Sheryl] Sandberg; Christie hosted him at the governor’s beach retreat on the Jersey Shore; and Booker led King and his wife, Melissa, on a tour of Newark, with stops at parks and businesses that hadn’t existed before hisThe real story: Why Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to Newark schools was announced on Oprah’s show - The Washington Post:
