by 
Regarding the Zuckerberg donation to the Newark Public Schools…
I am not hopeful at all. I am concerned. What makes you think that Christie hated public education and teachers yesterday, but not today?
Will the funds be used to supplement or supplant local school funding? In other words, will Christie steal $100,000,000 from Newark’s budget as soon as the check clears?
This is a hostile takeover of another urban school district and a surrender of democracy to mayoral control. Neither Cory Booker or Chris Christie have a clue how to end the poverty and terrible infrastructure deficits in Newark, let alone run a school system. Until, quite recently (kudos to Booker), Newark didn’t have a supermarket, movie theatre or bowling alley. It was a dead city.
How high do you expect student achievement to be in a once-majestic city with intergenerational poverty? I have said it before and I will say it again. I have worked in schools all over the world (on 6 continents) and have never come across more genuinely committed, hard-working or generous educators as those who work in the Newark, NJ Public Schools.
The teachers in that district have been maligned through decades of “state control” of the district and yet if we are to believe the politicians, nothing has improved. Shame on the politicians, not the poor kids and their teachers.
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I’ve offered Cory Booker my assistance (via Twitter) many times. He’s never had the courtesy to respond.
The teacher-bashing, charter school takeovers and endless standardized testing is sure to follow turn this gift into a weapon against common sense and the children of Newark.
Sadly, $100,000,000 is probably not enough money to build one new high school in Newark.
Zuckerberg’s generosity is laudable, but the money won’t help when marshall law/mayoral control is declared, the community is pushed aside and teachers are demonized.
Read the following articles for related information:
- Oprah – Wrong On Education for Many Years
- First We Kill the Teacher Unions! (Cory Booker & Obama’s war on teachers)
- School Wars (Stager’s magazine article on the privatization of public schools)
- Nostradamus and Arne Duncan (Seymour Papert told you so!)
- The US Government now a Subsidiary of Eli Broad (public treasure surrendered to billionaires)
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.
The links for additional reading are coming up with a “Error 403 – Forbidden
You tried to access a document for which you don’t have privileges.”
P.S. I was fed this post via paper.li/jimohagan. 🙂
Hi Jim,
Thanks for helping me debug the post.
Thanks for reading!
Gary
It has come to my attention that the movie theater and Pathmark on Bergen Street were both built before Cory Booker became Newark’s mayor.
“Until, quite recently (kudos to Booker), Newark didn’t have a supermarket, movie theatre or bowling alley. It was a dead city.”
I don’t know if I ever bowled in Newark, so yes, perhaps that is correct. But there were certainly supermarkets and movie theaters before Booker.
Christie and Booker are both out of their minds, and Oprah and Zuckerberg have no idea what they are doing. At least the two billionaires are trying to help. As an 8th grade student in New Jersey, I am outraged by Christie’s antics. I wish someone smart would grow a pair and run for governer next election. Sorry, Newark. I feel bad for you.