“The Oprah Winfrey Show” hosted the unlikely trio of Cory Booker, who was then the Democratic mayor of Newark, Chris Christie, who was then the Republican governor of New Jersey, and a skittish-looking Mark Zuckerberg. They were there to announce a $100m donation from the Facebook founder to help Newark’s beleaguered schools. Mr Booker promised it would be a “bold new paradigm for educational excellence in the country”, and helped raise another $100m in matching donations.
A review of the recent evidence suggests this pessimism is misplaced. For district schools, the high-school graduation rate has climbed to 76%, up from 61% in 2011. A study done by researchers at Harvard found an initial drop-off in test scores, and then, after the reforms set in, a big improvement in English tests, though not in maths.
School choice has always scrambled the usual left-right divide in American politics. Mr Booker’s belief in it differs strongly from Ms DeVos’s and as a senator he voted against her confirmation. Whereas those on the right see parental choice as a good in itself—and as a way to expand religious education—progressives favour charter schools as a path to opportunity for poor black and Hispanic children whom urban school systems have failed for decades.
Disruption was also especially threatening because the school district was one of the largest employers in the city. The budget was nearly $1bn a year—meaning that even the impressive-seeming $200m donation, which was spent over five years, represented only a 4% annual increase in funding. Some of the jobs supported by the big budget seemed superfluous. In her book Ms Russakoff describes a Gogol-like setting in which the clerks had clerks.
Try talking to real adults instead if these children! Can’t get actual adults to listen to yiu so you go after the weak minded children! Great job Booker!😡😡😡
What success? New Jersey schools are turning Muslim! So what exactly did he do for our country?