Facebook-funded fix of Newark schools hits streets

The first phase of the $100 million Facebook-funded makeover of Newark’s school system will reach far beyond classrooms and into living rooms, reports the Associated Press. Over the next eight weeks, city residents will be targeted with phone calls, home visits and focus groups as part of an effort to get parents more involved in the educational process and to find out what is working–and what isn’t–in the city’s troubled school system.

“We don’t want to give anyone any excuses for not participating in this process,” Shavar Jeffries, president of the Newark Public Schools Advisory Board, said Monday at a news conference. “There are no excuses.”

Mayor Cory Booker and city officials made the announcements Monday at the kickoff of the Partnership for Education in Newark, whose headquarters are housed in a converted furniture store in the city’s heart……Read More

Facebook founder to donate $100 million to remake Newark’s schools

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive and a founder of Facebook, has agreed to donate $100 million to improve the long-troubled public schools in Newark, and Gov. Chris Christie will cede some control of the state-run system to Mayor Cory A. Booker in conjunction with the huge gift, according to the New York Times. The three men plan to announce the arrangement on Friday on the “Oprah Winfrey Show.” The changes would not formally relax the legal power the state seized in 1995, when it declared Newark’s schools a failure and took control of the system, replacing the elected school board with a mostly toothless advisory board. Rather, Mr. Christie plans to give the mayor a major role in choosing a new superintendent and redesigning the system, but to retain the right to take control back. For now, at least, the arrangement tightens an already friendly relationship between the governor, a Republican, and the mayor, a Democrat who was once seen as a likely challenger for the State House in 2013…

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