The Deal That Brought Mark Zuckerberg's $100 Million Gift to Newark's Schools

In September 2010, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker joined Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for a taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show, where they announced the Facebook founder's $100 million donation to Newark's struggling public schools. Zuckerberg's gift was supplemented by matching donations, unleashing $200 million that Christie and Booker promised would transform New Jersey's largest school district.

Five years later, Gov. Christie is running for the White House, Booker is a US Senator, and their point-person to lead the effort to reform Newark's schools, former state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson, has resigned after a tumultuous 4 years at the helm. What was initially portrayed as a bipartisan effort to reform the city's schools turned into the most divisive issue in Newark, with many educators, city leaders and school parents saying they were completely left out of the decision-making process.

Journalist Dale Russakoff has spent the past five years chronicling the effort to reform public education in the city for her new book The Prize: Who's In Charge of America's Schools?

Russakoff told WNYC's Jami Floyd that looking back on it, it's clear that Booker and Christie weren't prepared for the long road ahead.

"I thought that with [hundreds of millions] of dollars...that they knew how to reform a district, and how to help urban schools, not just charter schools," said Russakoff. "I thought they really knew how to take...the whole district and make all of those schools perform better for kids, and they really didn't know how to do that."

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