The Prize (31 page)

Williams had changed in other ways. She was now Princess Fils Aime (pronounced Feece Ah-
mee
), having married Ronald Fils Aime, her boyfriend of several years whom she had met at her church. And in the summer of 2014, she earned a master's degree in education leadership from Columbia University, an experience that caused her to reexamine all her premises about teaching and learning. “We talked in my master's program about ethics and the ethic of critique, and how our first priority is the child's well-being,” she said. “A school district, a principal, and a teacher may all have different ideas of what is required for well-being, but as a teacher, at some point you have to stop accepting no. You have to say no, I'm going to critique the system.” At the heart of her critique, she said, was the district's failure to get more of its money to classrooms and children who need it.

So instead of Room 112, Fils Aime is now in Room 202 at
SPARK
. Echo the owl has come too, helping her as always to teach letters and sounds to five-year-olds. Her new classroom is known as Lincoln University, for the nation's first degree-granting historically black college. As at
BRICK
Avon, if her students allow their attention to wander, they hear a calm voice say, “Ms. Fils Aime is feeling sad inside because the scholars in Lincoln are not trying their best right now.” And as at
BRICK
Avon, they snap back to work as if by magic. Her students at
SPARK
are as needy as those at Avon, she said, in part because she is teaching an inclusion class for children with cognitive and emotional disabilities, including some with symptoms of trauma. But here, in a class of twenty-six children, Fils Aime has considerable support. She is one of two full-time teachers and a learning specialist who instruct children in small groups of eight or nine. Fils Aime said there is less conflict than in her class at Avon because students with emotional problems get more attention. As at
BRICK
Avon, some of her angriest students have tried to hit classmates. But instead of hav
ing to wait months for support from district administrators, she said, a school social worker arrived almost immediately to observe the child and suggest adjustments. In some cases, the social worker conducted multiple observations, identified idiosyncratic circumstances in the classroom that triggered a child's anger, and worked with Fils Aime to alter them. Her conclusion was not that charters were inherently better, but rather that they were structured to more easily deliver money to classrooms than was the district.

“Budgets tell you a lot about values,” she said. “We need to change the values of our district.” She said she wants to return one day to the district to be part of that change.

It is significant that Fils Aime, now thirty, aspires to have the power to reshape Newark's public schools. She was a product of those schools, and unlike many of her classmates, she recognized their inadequacy as a grave injustice. She is part of a historic shift in the makeup of Newark in which a generation raised in the wake of riots, white flight, and the near collapse of the public schools is coming into its own. Ras Baraka is the first mayor to have been born in Newark since Hugh Addonizio—the Italian American former congressman who presided over the riots. Kenneth Gibson and Sharpe James, the first two African American mayors, were born in the Deep South and came north in the Great Migration. Booker was a child of the suburbs. But now comes a generation that inherited the tragedies of Newark and lived to tell the story, and perhaps to change it. There are teachers and principals throughout the city's schools, both district and charter, with the same convictions as Fils Aime, potential leaders who could speak both for Newark and to Newark about the difficult ways in which public education needs to change. To those engaged in the struggle, the stakes are embodied in a message Fils Aime posted on her Facebook page in January 2015: “Sometimes we lack the conviction that our success is needed, when in fact our families and communities need us to be uncommonly successful.”

With her unrelenting spirit, Princess Fils Aime will be working to improve the Newark schools long after the current wave of reformers
is gone. For her, the work begins with finding a path beyond the polarizing debate over charters and districts to conceive of all schools as institutions designed to meet the complex needs of children and communities.

“Finding a way to connect these worlds is my focus now,” she said, “so that we can ask of every school: What does this particular school need in order to meet the challenges of the neighborhood it's situated in? And then we simply have to provide it. We have to be able to show children: Why is this education meaningful? How can you possibly do that if so many other things are not working?”

To those like Fils Aime who see education through the lens of students and classrooms, it is obvious that urban public schools are being asked to overcome nothing less that the effects of poverty. Reformers are right, she said, to insist on consistently excellent teaching and leadership, but the results in Newark and in distressed cities across the country make clear that much more support is needed. Coming from her, and from Priscilla Chan, this is not an excuse. It is a simple but urgent plea to put the real needs of children at the center of the national conversation about education reform, which in its ideological devisiveness is in danger of leaving them behind.

I came to know Newark as a reporter in the New York bureau of the
Washington Post
from the mid-1990s through 2008, during the mayoralties of Sharpe James and Cory Booker. I met Professor Clement Price the first time I reported a story in the city, and he became a friend whose deep knowledge and feeling for Newark kept me on the lookout for more opportunities to explore its riches and its glaring challenges. He and Robert Curvin—author of
Inside Newark
, who also became a friend—taught me to look at Newark as a metaphor for much of urban America, saddled with the long-term consequences of racism and inequality, made worse by ill-advised government policies and economic change. More and more, I saw Newark in terms of this line from James Baldwin's preface to his
Notes of a Native Son:
“I am what time, circumstance, history have made of me, certainly, but I am also much more than that. So are we all.”

Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million gift to the Newark schools in September 2010 struck me as an enormously lucky stroke for the city. Like many others, I viewed education reform from a distance but as a movement full of promise, and the Newark schools as desperately in
need of change and support. I was eager to follow what would come of this generous gift and to explore how it would interact with and perhaps mitigate some of the forces that had dragged the city down for so long. The story that emerged was less promising than I expected. The reasons, as I discovered, could fill a book. That almost everyone on all sides was well intentioned made the failures as well as the successes of the enterprise that much more important to wrestle with. I have worked to portray all of this with fidelity to events, context, and the many people who entrusted me with their experiences and perspectives. Over four and a half years, I chronicled the unfolding story from the back seat of Cory Booker's mayoral SUV, dozens of classrooms, homes, and neighborhoods of Newark students, windowless rooms where policymakers labored in the school district headquarters, opulent offices of wealthy philanthropists, gatherings of education reformers around the country, Chris Christie's gubernatorial office, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook conference room, and scores of public meetings, rallies, and coffee klatches in Newark. All characters are identified by their real names except Tariq Anderson, which is a pseudonym.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I want to reveal that one of my sons, Sam Purdy, is in ways a participant in the school reform movement. He is a middle school teacher who began his career through Teach for America in a public school district in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. He also taught for two years at a
KIPP
charter school in New York City. However, at the time that I reported and wrote about
SPARK
Academy, the
KIPP
elementary school featured in this book, he was not employed by
KIPP
.

A disclosure of another sort is that I embarked on this book out of a lifelong interest in race and inequality, having come of age in Birmingham, Alabama, as a white child during the final years of legal segregation. I attended all-white suburban schools and have vivid memories of drinking from “white” water fountains, riding in whites-only elevators, and attending the state fair on nights reserved for white residents. I had parents who—unusual in white Birmingham
then—regarded all of this as profoundly wrong and encouraged me from a young age to question it. For this reason, I dedicated this book to their memory.

I am indebted to many people who believed in this book and in my ability to write it. Deanne Urmy, my editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, emailed on a Saturday night in 2011 to convey her excitement after reading my book proposal. Her commitment never wavered, nor did her exceptional skills, both professional and personal. I am grateful also to Joëlle Delbourgo, my agent and friend, for guidance, insights, and encouragement. Dorothy Wickenden patiently and brilliantly helped me elevate the narrative as editor of the first serial in
The New Yorker
. I benefited tremendously from the wisdom and time of David Barstow and Sara Mosle in conceptualizing the book.

Cory Booker, Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Christie, Chris Cerf, and Cami Anderson gave me rare opportunities to witness the unfolding story of education reform in Newark. I'm grateful to them for seeing the value in patient, in-depth journalism and for tolerating my lurking presence and ceaseless questions for four and one half years.

I am lucky to have many gifted writers as friends, and several of them generously read and commented on the manuscript. Major thanks to Michael Sokolove, Natalie Wexler, Carol Rodgers, and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin. Thanks also to Nicholas Lemann for sharing his wealth of knowledge about education in multiple conversations. I deeply appreciate the help of Don Graham and Bill Bradley in vouching for me to key people in the Newark effort.

It would be impossible to name everyone who helped shape my understanding of Newark and the events in this book. Many of them are quoted in the narrative, but there are scores of others, some of whom chose to remain anonymous. Thanks to Princess Fils Aime, Joanna Belcher, Charity Haygood, Dominique Lee, Chris Perpich, Milagros Harris, Ras Baraka, Shavar Jeffries, Chaleeta Barnes, Tameshone Lewis, Shakel Nelson, Winston Jackson, Alif Beyah, Lakiesha Mills, Dyneeka McPherson, Junius Williams, Richard Cammarieri, Kathleen Nugent, Jen Holleran, Paul Bernstein, Kimberly McLain,
Kevin Callaghan, Renee Harper, Matthew Frankel, Dan Gohl, Chuck Crafts, Gordon MacInnes, Ryan Hill, Steve Small, Ben Cope, Norman Atkins, Khaatim Sherrer-El, Bashir Akinyele, Jamani Montague, Irene Cooper-Basch, Barbara Reisman, Mashea Ashton, Tynesha McHarris, Mike Maillaro, Bruno Tedeschi, Cynthia King Vance, David Sciarra, Rob Reich, Lizabeth Cohen, Jelani Cobb, Rick Hess, and Robin Lake. I benefited from the work of fellow journalists David Giambusso, Jessica Calefati, John Mooney, Tom Moran, Paul Tough, Sara Neufeld, Kate Zernike, Lyndsey Layton, Jonathan Alter, Elizabeth Green, Dana Goldstein, Bob Braun, Nicolas Stavros Niarcos, and Aaron Miguel Cantú. And I am grateful to good friends who were exceptionally thoughtful listeners at key points along the way—Joanmarie Kalter, Donna Rifkind, Felicity Barringer, Michael Taubman, Trish Perlmutter, Gabrielle Glaser, Meg Campbell, Sara Rimer, Steve Luxenberg, Carolyn Acker, and David Greenstein. This is especially true of my parents-in-law, Arthur and Thelma Purdy. On a personal note, I owe immeasurable thanks to Drs. Manjit Bains, David Ilson, and Karyn Goodman of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for their medical genius and humanity.

I have saved the biggest debts for last. My husband, Matt Purdy, a bottomless source of faith and love—in sickness and in health—played every imaginable role along this journey. It was his idea that I write this book and, despite having a fairly demanding day job, he was always by my side as unofficial editor, thought partner, cheerleader, in-house humorist, and just-in-time supplier of the bon mot. I am thankful every day for the gift of our sons, Sam and Adam, whose love and confidence lifted me over every hurdle.

Appendix I

LABOR AND CONTRACT COSTS:
$89.2 million committed

• Teachers' contract: $48.3 million, including $31 million in back pay for teachers and $18 million in other incentives, including less than $6 million for merit pay; $4 million for teachers' graduate school tuition support
  

• Principals' contract: $13.7 million committed but not yet spent;
  ^*
  about $1 million awarded to selected principals
  

• Buyouts for unwanted teachers, principals, and support staff: $21 million committed
  ^†
  

• Administrative fees: $1.7 million
  

CHARTER SCHOOLS:
$57.6 million to expand and support Newark charters, including $14.25 million raised by the Newark Charter School Fund, $10 million from the NewSchools Venture Fund, and smaller donations by individual funders

CONSULTANTS (MOSTLY TO THE SCHOOL DISTRICT):
$21 million for communications, data systems, strategic planning, financial analysis, human resources management, reorganization of district offices, teacher and principal evaluation frameworks, advice on teachers' contract negotiations, design of universal enrollment system, analysis of student performance data

PROJECTS OF LOCAL PHILANTHROPIES:
$12 million