• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mark Zuckerberg gave New Jersey $100 million to fix Newark's schools, WASTED

Status
Not open for further replies.
P

Prologue

Member
In the fall of 2010, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Oprah that he'd be making a generous gift to Newark, New Jersey.

As Oprah said in her Oprah way, "one ... hundred ... million ... dollars" would be given to Newark Mayor Cory Booker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as the three began the Startup: Education foundation.

The plan was to turn Newark into what Zuckerberg called "a symbol of educational excellence for the whole nation," spent on retaining the best teachers, and creating environments that would produce successful students and, one day, graduates.

Newark is a city wrought with crime. Its graduation rate is about 67%. It needed the help, and Booker's vision sounded promising.

Between 2010 and 2012, The New Yorker reports that "more than twenty million dollars of Zuckerberg’s gift and matching donations went to consulting firms with various specialties: public relations, human resources, communications, data analysis, [and] teacher evaluation." Many of the consultants were being paid upwards of $1,000 a day.

“Everybody’s getting paid but Raheem still can’t read," Vivian Cox Fraser, president of the Urban League of Essex County, was quoted saying.

Today, the money is pretty much gone, and Newark has hardly become that symbol of excellence.

The New Yorker has the full 12-page story today, and we've dug into it to find some of the main timeline points you need to know.

In 2010, Mayor Booker found a loophole in getting money to help fund Newark's educational reform. It came in the form of philanthropic donations, which, unlike government funding, required no public review of priorities or spending. Gov. Christie approved the plan, and Booker's job was to find the donors.

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg (like many other tech billionaires) had pledged to donate half of his fortune, but as The New Yorker reported, he knew new very little about urban education or philanthropy.

Booker and Zuckerberg met to discuss a vision for Newark's future. Booker wanted to significantly reward Newark teachers who improved student performance rather than focus on seniority and tenure. Teachers would be challenged and rewarded to do their jobs well, and students would benefit.

Zuckerberg was confident Newark and Booker were the right recipients for this huge gift (given over five years), and agreed to gift $100 million dollars with a few stipulations:

Booker would also have to raise $100 million dollars. Zuckerberg's money would release to Newark as matching dollars rolled in.
Booker would have to replace the current superintendent with a “transformational leader.”


The reform ended up looking like this: taking low-performing public schools and closing them, turning them into charter schools and "themed" high schools. But there was no easy way to expand charters without destabilizing traditional public schools.

In the months following the gift announcement, Booker and Christie still had no superstar superintendent and no reform plan.

Zuckerberg was concerned and urged Booker to find the superintendent, even sending Booker a poster widely seen around the Facebook campus that read, "Done is better than perfect."

Immediately, Booker appointed Cami Anderson for the job. She implemented ways to help students and improve schools (all which The New Yorker detailed), but there were roadblocks along the way, like how the students brought the issues going on in their homes with them to the classroom.

Anderson wanted to give schools more support to help students on emotional and social levels, but Newark had already been spending more money per student than most districts in the entire country, none of which was reaching the children it existed to help.

New contracts were being created, money was being hemorrhaged, and the district was going broke. But interviews — like this one in Forbes — regarding the money and the future of Newark's schools were always positive, highlighting, of course, only the good aspects of the huge monetary donation.

Anderson came up with another plan called One Newark, which sounded like it could work. Families would choose which charter or public schools they would want to send their children to. Children from the lowest-income families would get first pick. So would kids with special needs.

It all sounded great until parents and teachers realized it was only on paper. Solutions hadn't been figured out fully. Programs hadn't been developed. Issues like transportation had not yet been tackled. Things that were promised didn't come to fruition.

According to The New Yorker, Anderson, Booker, Zuckerberg, and Christie, "despite millions of dollars spent on community engagement — have yet to hold tough, open conversations with the people of Newark about exactly how much money the district has, where it is going, and what students aren’t getting as a result.
Click to expand...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-gave-jersey-100-130400933.html

Real shame. I drove through Newark a while back, real run down place.
 
J

jtb

Banned
Unsurprising. full-time philanthropy is difficult and wasteful enough as it is, not surprising that all that money would get lost in the middlemen with so little oversight
 
V

Valkyr Junkie

Member
Sad, but given this tidbit of info, I'm not sure why anyone thought this would be a good idea:

but Newark had already been spending more money per student than most districts in the entire country, none of which was reaching the children it existed to help.
Click to expand...

Oh, wait

more than twenty million dollars of Zuckerberg’s gift and matching donations went to consulting firms
Click to expand...

This story will probably be the next Benghazi for Fox News.
 
K

Ken Masters

Banned
people trusted the government to handle $100 million with honor and integrity and made sure not one penny was wasted?


how naive
 
M

mre

Golden Domers are chickenshit!!
Lost in there is that it was $200 million that Newark has wasted, because Zuckerberg's gift was contingent upon Newark finding other donors willing to match him dollar for dollar.
 
N

Nero3000

Member
Guevara said:
control f: consultants

Yep that's a great way to waste money without really doing anything.

I look forward to reading the full New Yorker article, thanks.
Click to expand...

Dunno, if you have no clue what you are doing and no plan (which is what it sounds like here), a consultant is a good way of building that plan.

The issue here is that they didn't set a hard budget and didn't push to gain anything out of the process/project. Bad management.
 
O

Ourobolus

Banned
In the months following the gift announcement, Booker and Christie still had no superstar superintendent and no reform plan.

Zuckerberg was concerned and urged Booker to find the superintendent, even sending Booker a poster widely seen around the Facebook campus that read, "Done is better than perfect."
Click to expand...

As a project manager, this really makes me angry. While the last quote isn't really wrong, it's not something you say when you're still at 0% completion.
 
R

Redberyl

Neo Member
How did they allocate specific costs against this money specifically? According to the data from the state of New Jersey the total spending by the Newark school district during the 2011 to 2012 school year was a little over a billion dollars:

2011-12 Total Spending: $1,003,365,545
2011-12 Average Daily Enroll plus Sent Pupils: 43,322.4

State Data Here
 
C

CrankyJay

Banned
Technosteve said:
so many people with there hands out except money for the kids.
Click to expand...

And this is why I don't feel bad at all during school budget votes and voting "no" for increases when people say "but it's for the kids"...the people involved in this should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

Also OP, source please...
 
M

Mammoth Jones

Member
Throwing money at a problem is never the solution when the people managing the money do the wrong things with it. Government is great at poorly spending other peoples money.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Booker isn't going anywhere politically, and neither is Christie. Both have known for awhile where this money was going (consultants).

This is why if you're going to "give" schools money, you should do so by buying specific items for the school. That million would have been better spent if Zuckerberg just brought a bunch of toilet paper, computers, and text books for the school district.
 
P

ProfessorX

Unconfirmed Member
Goes to show you that throwing money at a problem doesn't necessarily fix the problem.
Zuck got his big generous headlines.
Booker got his fame, and he has moved onto the national stage.
Christie is looking at his presidential ambitions.
Consultants are getting paid... A lot... For what?
And the kids of Newark look to be no better off than before...
 
S

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Really odd contrast with the renovation going on in downtown Newark. The last few times I've been home I barely recognized the area near the Devils' arena. Of course, that might be an explanation in and of itself if the bookkeeping is as bad as they say.
 
S

Sirpopopop

Member
Mammoth Jones said:
Throwing money at a problem is never the solution when the people managing the money do the wrong things with it. Government is great at poorly spending other peoples money.
Click to expand...


Government is poor at spending other people's money because most government solutions nowadays amount to:

"Keep government out of it, and let the private sector work its magic."

Case in point: Charter schools.

Edit: This is just one example that I always consider when the magic charter school bullet point is brought up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/education/28school.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

A school can work together with its union, not fire employees, and actually be successful. I know, in this day and age, unions and "BIG" are two big no-no words, but that's a false dichotomy.
 
T

TheOrangeKid007

Member
Giving carer politicians money and expecting not to go to cronies is wishful thinking.

You know who I would choose. Whoever was I charge of the ford focus as the first truly global car. That guy was given a task that no one ever succeeded at and fulfilled it (I'm aware it was probably a giant team at Ford) Give someone who knows how to find results a chance.
 
R

R10Neymarfan

Member
Ferrio said:
Know how you help those kids? You give those money directly to the parents of those kids.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't give money to some parents of those kids. They will likely blow it on drugs, alcohol, and trivial stuff not for their children. Of course not all parents are like this but if we are talking about an area like Newark expect that situation to also occur.
 
S

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Duane Cunningham said:
"Consultant" more often than not seems to mean "six figure bullshit artist".
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that tends to be the case. It seems as if it was used to funnel money :(

Furthermore, consultants are only useful if you have people in charge willing to listen and make changes based on their recommendations. Plus, good consultants are hard to find.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

SD Union Tribune: Rule change a blow to charter schools [Independent Study Based]
0
2K
Tripon replied
Chicago: Can't graduate High School unless you have a Job or are going to College
2 3 4 5
221
25K
timetokill replied
Menendez will be first sitting senator in almost a decade to face corruption trial
12
3K
1.21Gigawatts replied
Oklahoma teacher turns to panhandling to pay for school supplies
2
80
7K
hydragonwarrior replied
With state budget in crisis, many Oklahoma schools hold classes four days a week
2 3
148
17K
Baron Doggystyle von Woof replied
Top Bottom