Newark Public Schools get $100 million from Facebook creator on Oprah today

I would watch if I didn't have an aversion to throwing up.

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^ That's what I was thinking. Or he'll try to find some way to screw the school district over at a later time over the money.

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If Whitman gets elected in California, Christie will be crediting himself for that too:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/chivalrous-chris-christie-saves-meg-whitman-from-heckling-madman-video.php?ref=fpb

Updated On: 9/24/10 at 11:10 AM

Christ Christie's involvement in this was a mark on an otherwise wonderful afternoon.

I work for TEAM Schools, one of the KIPP Schools, and we had a network PD scheduled for today, which included watching the Oprah show from 4-5.

orangeskittles - go away, before someone drops a house on you.

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There's absolutely nothing wrong with giving money to help kids - if that was where I truly believed the money was going. 1) The money is going to create charter schools, something devastating to the public school system which Christie has been trying to tear apart since day one of his administration. 2)This is the scary part. From nj.com:

"The school plan calls for Christie to use his authority as the ultimate supervisor of the Newark district to name Booker a "special assistant to the governor" for education in the city. It is a maneuver never attempted before and one that includes some bold political footwork. Only the Legislature or the voters have the legal authority to decide the management structure of school districts. But under this agreement the state is still, technically, running Newark schools. Christie would be able to overrule Booker if the two disagree, the sources said
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/facebook_100m_newark_schools_oprah_christie.html

In other words, Christie has a stranglehold there now backed by a ton of money. Anyone who disagrees with his policies (which is just about every intelligent public educator in the state) can see how bad this is.

I'm not going repaste the whole article here, but read it and it's pretty clear that this is NOT "money to help the kids and everything is hunky-dory" that you seem to think it is.

Christie is a manipulative, egotistical, hypocritical bully. He does NOT tie himself to philanthropic gestures such as this without ulterior political motives.

If nothing else, think this might be a way to help him divert attention from the 400 million HE lost for us in the Race to the Top?

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I watched about 5 minutes of it and bailed after Oprah screamed out "TEN MILLION DOLLARS!!!" right before going to commercial.

Did she question Christie regarding criticisms against him or was it an Oprah Lovefest?

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Is your school accountable to the same mandates and standards that we are?

Of course. We accept state funding, though the amount of money we receive is far less per pupil than the public schools do. But because we're not hampered by antiquated union requirements, we're able to be innovative and do what's best for the students, not the union.

I'll give you just one example: we're much better able to retain quality teachers and dismiss the bad ones.

One of our new teachers this year was dismissed from his teaching job last year. He was received all "far exceeds the standards" on his evaluations last year, and by all accounts, was, and is, a wonderful teacher. However, his public school fired him last year because he was the lowest on the seniority ladder. Other teachers in his department, who received many "not meeting the standards" on their evaluations, were allowed to keep their jobs because they were tenured. How exactly is that helping the children? A school district lost a quality, dedicated educator, and instead kept a more seasoned, far less effective teacher, because the union favors dismissals to be done by seniority, not by quality of instruction.

Here's the Wall Street Journal article the teacher I mentioned was featured in, by the way.

My argument has nothing to do with merit pay. It has to do with being able to remove ineffective teachers. The teacher I mentioned was evaluated (and rated highly) by his supervisors, not by a test score.
Even Top Teachers Get Laid Off

Thank you, jasonf. I appreciate your response, because I can understand your position now compared to your immediate response of feigning nasueam.

we're able to be innovative and do what's best for the students, not the union.

This is exactly my view on the nationwide situation. After watching the chaos and upheaval of the DC public school systems under Rhee (which started out worse than Newark), my perspective is different on the battle between teachers and administrators. For me, it comes down to the fact that the students are more important than the teachers. If drastic measures are needed to make a difference in improving education (like in DC), then I'm sorry, but I don't have much sympathy for teachers who lose their jobs when they've been making $70,000 a year with tenure and benefits while 40% of their students are still illiterate in the 3rd grade.

On this issue specifically, I don't think Zuckerberg is an idiot. I certainly believe he's smarter than Christie. This donation probably has more stipulations than the Treaty of Versailles. I don't think he would sign over a $100 million check to Christie, then walk away and hope for the best.

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Updated On: 9/27/10 at 10:25 PM

For everyone's sake - the kids especially - I hope you're right. I just don't trust Christie as far as I could throw him.

I hate Chris Christie as much as the next person, but put the politics aside for a minute and celebrate something good for the kids.

All right - then let's go back to the root of the problem - why was he laid off? Because of the union, or because of Christie's barbaric cuts?

The layoffs would have occurred with or without the union. The union just made it impossible to lay off the ineffective teachers and caused many good ones to lose their jobs.

The union rules, agree with them or not, have been in place for years.

That doesn't mean their right or any good. Just because something's been in place for years doesn't mean it's serving our children well. In fact, it's one of the great injustices that students in public schools face. Their districts are forced to keep ineffective teachers because they're tenured.

Anger at unions from teachers because of cuts is misplaced, plain and simple.

No one's angry at the unions because of the cuts. They're angry because when the cuts came down, they made it impossible to remove a lot of the less effective teachers who were tenured. As a result, a lot of highly effective teachers lost jobs. The "last in, first out" policy is arcane, doesn't help the kids, and needs to be done away with.