Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million donation to Newark public schools failed ...

[SVPete]

Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million donation to Newark public schools failed miserably — here's where it went wrong
Abby Johnson
businessinsider.com
12/25/15

In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to Newark, New Jersey's failing public-school system with the intention of turning around the schools in five years.

The goals Zuckerberg set out to achieve — to enact a number of reforms that would make Newark a model city for education reform — are widely seen as a failure, journalist Dale Russakoff told Business Insider.
...
One of the biggest failures in Zuckerberg's plan to reform Newark schools was the renegotiated teachers' contracts.

Zuckerberg envisioned the teacher contract reform to be a centerpiece of the reform and contributed $50 million — half of his total donation — to go to working on that cause.

Zuckerberg wanted to be able to create more flexibility in teacher contracts to reward high-performing teachers and to fire teachers with poor records of student achievement.
...
Instead, the opposite occurred. Chris Cerf, the New Jersey commissioner of education at the time, worked with the Legislature and was able to negotiate some new accountability measures in teacher contracts.

But the teachers' union only agreed upon those measures if the seniority protections remained intact.

A quick summation of this would be that this was a $100M lesson proving that throwing money at a problem won't automatically solve the problem. Some of the practical outcomes: the union is as entrenched as ever; incompetents and time-servers that have tenure are as protected as ever; ill-coordinated restructuring of district schools have resulted in students burning time travelling to schools outside of their neighborhoods, sometimes through dangerous areas of the city.

I don't know Mark Zuckerberg, so what follows is my speculation based on familiarity with the Liberal-Progressive archetype. I don't think Zuckerberg learned much. (Public) Schools and teachers are such sacred icons that I don't think he recognized the teacher's union(s) and educrats as being a big chunk of the problem. I also doubt he got past thinking of children as vessels into which all kinds of good things can be poured, i.e. passive and open receivers of whatever schools pour in.

Reality is that unions will fight tooth and nail to protect their least competent and least diligent dues-paying members; students and their parents don't pay dues. Reality is that many educrats are into power, the latest edu-fads, social change and serving their time until retirement. Reality is that many students' family and social situations and cultures heavily discourage learning and investing time and work in their future.

However idealistic and good his intentions may have been, Mark Zuckerberg wasn't going to waltz into Newark, NJ, wave a $100M wand, and transform Newark schools into a Progressive Education Nirvana.

[thundley4]

If he had truly wanted to make a difference,he should have donated the money towards establishing more charter schools.

[SVPete]

If he had truly wanted to make a difference,he should have donated the money towards establishing more charter schools.

From the article:

The $100 million from Zuckerberg actually became $200 million under the agreement other sources would match his contribution. Here's where that money went:
1.Labor and contract costs: $89.2 million
2.Charter schools: $57.6 million
3.Consultants: $21 million
4.Various local initiatives: $24.6 million

The reason this adds up to more than $100M is that Zuckerberg's $100M was matched by some one(s) else, making $200M available (not all of which as been disbursed.

With that explanatory note ... charter schools did get a big boost, so much so that the district was forced to close some schools and restructure how students were assigned to schools, That was the background of my comment, "ill-coordinated restructuring of district schools have resulted in students burning time travelling to schools outside of their neighborhoods, sometimes through dangerous areas of the city.". Maybe some improvements will result, through the students who went to those charter schools, but in the full picture even that made a mess (bad/stupid educrat planning in response to the student population shift).

[thundley4]

1.Labor and contract costs: $89.2 million

Was that over and above what was already budgeted for those costs?  Does that represent new hires?

One thing is for sure, government sure knows how to waste money.

[SVPete]

Was that over and above what was already budgeted for those costs?  Does that represent new hires?

One thing is for sure, government sure knows how to waste money.

That's how I would understand it - i.e. "over and above what was already budgeted". As for new hires, maybe. One thing government is "good" at is using one-time $$ to fund the start-up of long-term programs.

[DLR Pyro]

One thing is for sure, government sure knows how to waste money.

that's the lesson learned here,  but then that's something most conservatives already knew.