The Prize
Who's In Charge of America's Schools?
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
ThisNew York Times bestseller chronicles how Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Christie, and Cory Booker tried—and failed—to reform education in Newark, NJ.
In September of 2010, billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg went on Oprah to announce a pledge of $100 million to transform the downtrodden schools of Newark, New Jersey. There by his side were the city’s Democratic mayor, Cory Booker, and the state’s Republican governor, Chris Christie. Together, they vowed to make Newark “a symbol of educational excellence for the whole nation.” But this trio of power players had no idea what they were in for.
The tumultuous changes planned by reformers and their highly paid consultants spark a fiery grass-roots opposition stoked by local politicians and union leaders. At the center of the fight was Newark’s billion-dollar-a-year education budget: a prize that, for generations, had enriched seemingly everyone, except Newark’s children. In The Prize, Dale Russakoff presents a dramatic narrative encompassing the rise of celebrity politics, big philanthropy, extreme economic inequality, the charter school movement, and the struggles and triumphs of schools in one of the nation’s poorest cities.
“One of the most important books on education to come along in years.”—The New York Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Washington Post reporter Russakoff's fascinating study of the struggle to reform the Newark school system reveals the inner workings of a wide range of systemic and grassroots problems (charter schools, testing, accountability, private donors) plaguing education reform today. In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to help transform the schools of Newark, N.J., and create a national model of education reform. The move immediately sparked a series of competing political and social decisions for Mayor Cory Booker and Gov. Chris Christie. Russakoff sets up the struggle to control the schools with a big-money, top-down approach on one side and a teacher-based, student-by-student, bottom-up approach on the other. Her investigation shows how the powerful Booker-Christie-Zuckerberg triumvirate struggled to truly engage the community and ultimately failed to overcome the mighty Newark political machine. Russakoff accurately depicts individual teachers working in neighborhood schools and parents and staff in the charter system, including through their own words. She also tracks the progress of a student as he struggles to navigate the daily challenges presented by Newark's school reforms. Booker's mayoral successor, Ras Baraka, emerges as the anti-Booker, and Newark school superintendent Cami Anderson is left making the toughest of choices. Russakoff's eagle-eyed view of the current state of the public education system in Newark and the United States is one of the finest education surveys in recent memory.
