May 15, 2014
Mark Zuckerberg
Source: Shutterstock
This brilliant insight caught Christie’s imagination. Yes”fix the schools! How come nobody ever thought of that before?
Christie replied, “Heck, I got maybe six votes in Newark. Why not do the right thing?” … Christie’s response to Booker … reflected the moral tone of the movement.
Ah, that old moral tone. How pols love to present themselves as leaders of righteous crusades! (Well, not all pols.) Major reforms were set in motion. Legions of consultants were hired.
Philanthropists were appealed to: Mark Zuckerberg “pledged a hundred million dollars to Booker and Christie’s cause.” What was he thinking? He told Oprah Winfrey on her TV show in September 2010, where he shared the set with Booker and Christie:
I believe in these guys … We”re setting up a one-hundred-million-dollar challenge grant so that Mayor Booker and Governor Christie can have the flexibility they need to … turn Newark into a symbol of educational excellence for the whole nation.
Zuck could have saved himself a hundred rocks by reading Bob Weissberg’s book Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, which had come out a few weeks previously. Newark is a majority-black city, and a high proportion of blacks”much higher than the corresponding proportions of other races”are ineducable. Money won”t fix that.
So morality came up against reality and reality won. It has all ended in tears, although not necessarily for the movers and shakers.
Booker has maintained a public silence about the Newark schools since being sworn in as a senator. Christie has been trying to salvage his Presidential prospects. Almost all of Zuckerberg’s hundred million dollars has been spent or committed. He and [his wife] … have not proceeded with reforms in other school districts, as originally planned.
These stories leave you wondering how much longer we can … how shall I put it? … keep hope alive! And what will happen when hope dies at last? Will a new generation of Zuckerbergs write nine-digit checks to schemes promoted by Magic Negroes? Will black political corruption still get a shrug and a roll of the eyes and an “Oh well, I guess it’s their turn” from white voters? I”m just wondering.
