How New Jersey wasted $100 million donation from Zuckerberg

The New Yorker just released a 12 page report on how Christie & Booker blew the money.

"Improbably, a district with a billion dollars in revenue and two hundred million dollars in philanthropy was going broke. More than $20 million of the donation and matching gifts went to big bucks consultants in public relations, teacher evaluation, and data analysis. The consultants average pay was over $1,000 per day.


More than half of the Newark district’s annual budget paid for services other than instruction—often at inordinate prices and the principal's got a $40 million contract.

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Six months after the announcement on “Oprah,” Booker and Christie had no superintendent, no comprehensive reform plan, and no progress toward a new teachers’ contract. On Saturday, April 2, 2011, they met with Booker at Facebook’s headquarters, in Palo Alto. If these are the wrong metrics for measuring progress, they asked, what are the right ones? They were holding Booker accountable for performance, just as he intended to hold teachers and principals accountable. Booker was contrite. “Guilty as charged,” he replied.

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Anderson’s first two years, the percentage of students passing the state’s standardized tests declined in all but two of the tested grades. She questioned the validity of the tests, saying that they had become harder and the students needier, although she used them to determine which schools were failing and required overhaul....but pointed out that Newark already spent more money per student than almost every other district in the country.

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12 page report

cliff notes