The buzz around Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to the Newark public schools has focused on whether he is trying to offset bad publicity caused by a new feature-length film about him.
What has been overlooked is the fact that one of the world’s up and coming tech industry celebrity leaders has come out in support of education reforms being championed by Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has unabashedly gone head to head with teacher unions.
It is a noteworthy development in an ongoing national debate over education. The head of what is arguably the world’s most dominant social media website – which has tremendous cultural cache and reach among young people in particular – has put his support behind a Republican politician who has said teacher unions are the most significant obstacle to true education reform.
Zuckerberg himself, and Facebook as a company, are not antagonistic toward unions like Christie is. The governor’s rhetoric and Zuckerberg’s at a joint press conference with Newark Mayor Corey Booker were markedly different on the issue, according to those present.
But while Zuckerberg had high praise for teachers in a blog post announcing his donation, he also said he wanted to work with leaders who would “challenge the status quo” and “cut through the politics and red tape.”
The highlight of Zuckerberg’s well-scripted donation rollout was a Sept. 24 appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” with Christie and Booker, a rising Democratic star who has already crossed party lines this year to work with the Republican governor on property tax issues.
Zuckerberg, who was connected with Christie through Booker after meeting the mayor this summer, said explicitly that he chose to give to Newark because of the distinct approach to education reform being pioneered by the political odd couple.
“Newark is really just because I believe in these guys,” Zuckerberg said.
“Running a company, the main thing that I have to do is find people who are going to be really great leaders and invest in them, and that’s what we’re doing here,” said the self-described “awkward” 26-year old. “We’re setting up a $100 million challenge grant so that Mayor Booker and Gov. Christie can have the flexibility that they need to implement new programs in Newark and really make a difference.”
A Facebook spokesman said that the $100 million “challenge grant” – which was donated by Zuckerberg himself to a new foundation he is launching – will be disbursed over the course of the next five years. Newark’s schools currently have an $800 million annual budget.
The exact mechanics of who will determine how the money will be spent have yet to be decided, several sources said. Neither has Facebook publicly stated what benchmarks will have to be met to release the full $100 million amount.
But the approach is clearly in the mold of the education reform movement that was embodied in Washington D.C.’s public schools under Mayor Adrian Fenty and his hand-picked chancellor, Michelle Rhee. Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who has become a major player in what is now a multi-billion dollar company, set up a meeting between Zuckerberg and Rhee during the process of deciding where to donate.
Sandberg, a former chief of staff to Larry Summers when he was Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, was instrumental in helping Zuckerberg decide where and how to give a large financial gift, according to the New York Times.
Sandberg, 41, did not respond to queries about whether D.C.’s schools were ever under consideration for a similar gift prior to Fenty’s loss in the city’s primary election on Sept. 14.
National debate over the school reform movement has heated up in the wake of Fenty’s loss – which is expected to lead to Rhee’s departure – and the release of a highly publicized documentary on education titled “Waiting for Superman,” which is tough on unions and favorable toward charter schools.
Yet there is a growing chorus of voices that resent what they consider outsider influence by education reformers. New York University Professor Diane Ravitch gave voice to some of these objections in a recent blog post.
But Benjamin Chavis, former CEO of the NAACP and now a senior adviser* at the Black Alliance for Educational Options, said he did not agree with such criticisms.
“The school reform movement is gaining momentum because there are dissatisfied parents and there are dissatisfied students and there are dissatisfied community leaders who are not satisfied with what the school system is producing,” Chavis said in an interview.
Chavis said one group, such as teacher unions, can’t be “scapegoated” but said they do bear some responsibility.
“Is it all the teacher unions fault? No. Are the teacher unions somewhat responsible for what the situation is? Yes, but they’re not solely responsible,” he said. “We need to have more accountability by all of the stakeholders, the parents, the teachers, the administrators, and the students as well as the community at large.”
The response by city, state and national teacher unions to the Zuckerberg gift, and the full-throated endorsement of Christie and Booker, has been muted to say the least. Both the Newark Teachers Union and the American Federation of Teachers declined to expand on the prickly statement they released the day of Zuckerberg’s announcement.
“The voices of frontline educators need to be respected and valued at every stage, especially when translating broad concepts into lesson plans, teaching methods, school conditions and resources that will affect students and teachers every day, in every classroom in every Newark school,” read a statement from AFT President Randi Weingarten and NTU President Joseph Del Grosso.
The statement reiterated a second time “the important role that frontline educators must play in decisions that affect school policies and practices.”
A spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association pointed out that Christie has cut $56 million from Newark’s school budget this year, as part of $819 million in statewide education cuts. The governor’s office said the amount cut from Newark was $43 million.
Christie has not run away from the cuts, however, arguing to the state that such measures are necessary to balance the state’s books after years of reckless spending. His cuts this year were part of an austerity package that he used to close a nearly $11 billion budget deficit.
Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said that the unions are “afraid of the things that this governor supports, and the president of the United States supports: school choice and charter schools.”
“The education establishment is afraid because the status quo is threatened,” Drewniak said.
*Chavis was originally listed as Chairman of the BAEO, a title currently held by Kevin Chavous.