In the Newark schools, the second most powerful employee isn’t even an employee. Go figure.
Wright: Who pays him?
Christopher Cerf, Gov. Chris Christie’s man in Newark, apparently thinks the city residents are stupid and do not deserve to know how or why or by whom his chief aide, De’Shawn Wright, is paid. That really is all anyone needs to know about why Cerf should not be the schools chief in New Jersey’s largest city–but, apparently, Cerf’s contempt for the city residents is just fine for most school board members and his ally, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
Wright, a champion of charter schools in Washington, DC, New York, and Newark, and past associate of Cerf and Cerf’s protégé and predecessor, Cami Anderson, is Cerf’s chief of staff, according to an organizational chart released at Tuesday night’s board meeting. Wright is paid a six figure salary but exactly how much is a secret–as is the source of his income.
Although Wright is probably the second most powerful figure in the Newark schools, he doesn’t work for the Newark schools.
Got that? Let’s repeat it: Although Wright is probably the second most powerful figure in the Newark schools, he doesn’t work for the Newark schools.
Who does he work for? Probably for the Fund for Newark’s Future–otherwise known as what’s left of the $100 million Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave to the Newark schools. But that hasn’t yet been confirmed because the fund is a private organization and not subject to New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA). Or some other private foundation devoted to the expansion of charter schools.
Conflict of interest?
This is what happened Tuesday night as most members of the once defiant and courageous school board sat back and allowed Cerf to drone on about how he and Anderson did marvelous things for the children of Newark for the last five years. The board members, most of them, now have to shut up because Baraka and Cerf are best budsIn the Newark schools, the second most powerful employee isn’t even an employee. Go figure. |: