THE DEAL: Baraka and Cerf become school “reform” allies
The deal last June was a stunner for many reasons–Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Republican Gov. Chris Christie cut a bargain to bring in former state schools chief Christopher Cerf, a charter school champion, to be the city schools superintendent. It didn’t initially make a lot of sense but, after the joint Cerf/Baraka announcement later today, Tuesday, city residents might get a better idea of what happened behind closed doors last spring that led to today’s surprising result: Baraka and Christie have become partners in school reform.
As this site reported last week, Baraka and Cerf will jointly promote a so-called “community schools initiative” aimed at making just one neighborhood in the city, its impoverished South Ward, into a showcase for Baraka’s idea for school reform: local schools that also serve as centers for providing health care and other services to neighborhood residents.
And here’s another shocker: The Cerf/Baraka plan will seek at least some of its funding for the plan from funds given to the city by Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, who donated $100 million to Newark to jumpstart what was supposed to be a plan–backed by former Mayor Cory Booker–to make Newark the “charter school capital of the nation.” Recent reportsindicate that about $30 million of that money still exists in the accounts of the Foundation for Newark’s Future (FNF). FNF’s president, Kimberly Baxter McLain, will be part of the joint announcement at City Hall the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 1.
Baraka became mayor in the May, 2014, election primarily because of his opposition to state control, personified by then state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson–a woman who was appointed city schools chief by Cerf in 2011 when Cerf was state education commissioner. Many of the actions taken by Anderson–including the closing of public schools, expansion of charters, failure to follow state law and regulations–were either outlined in a plan Cerf wrote for the state when he THE DEAL: Baraka and Cerf become school “reform” allies | Bob Braun's Ledger: