I researched this book primarily through interviews and firsthand observations. The notes below refer only to information on Newark and education that I researched in books, journals, newspapers, state and school district records, and online.
1. The Pact
[>] Christie had made urban schools: David Halbfinger, “Christie Aims at Democrats Unhappy with Poor Schools,” June 18, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/nyregion/19choice.html.
[>] “We’re paying caviar prices”: John Mooney, “Spotlight Video: Isaac,” February 11, 2011, town hall meeting in Union City, New Jersey. Christie was responding to a mother named Yvonne Moore, who said her son couldn’t get services for his disability in Newark schools. http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/11/0210/2248.
[>] Only 12.5 percent: United States Census Bureau, “State and County Quick Facts” for Newark, New Jersey. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/34/3451000.html.
[>] Newark was an extreme example: Newark Public Schools, “School Snapshot for Families.” See, for example, http://www.nps.k12.nj.us/wp-content/up loads/mdocs/FamilySnapshot_K8_ThirteenthAvenue.pdf.
[>] Forty-four percent of city children: Advocates for Children of New Jersey, “2012–2013 Newark Kids Count: A City Profile of Child Well-Being,” pp. 26, 29, 40. http://acnj.org/downloads/2013_02_01_NewarkReport.pdf.
[>] Henry Ford created the Ford English School: “Ford Motor Company Sociological Department and English School.” www.thehenryford.org/research/englishSchool.aspx.
[>] “If an unfriendly foreign power”: A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform is the full title of the 1983 report of President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence.
[>] Beginning in 2000: Foundation Stats: The Foundation Center’s Statistical Information Service, “Top 50 Foundation Awarding Grants for Elementary and Secondary Education, Circa 1998, 2000, and 2006.” foundationcenter.org/findfunders/statistics.
[>] the fastest and most tumultuous turnover: Robert Curvin, “The Persistent Minority: The Black Political Experience in Newark,” PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1975, p. 13.
[>] Newark cleared more slums: The displacement of Newark residents is discussed in Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), also known as the Kerner Report, p. 142; Curvin, “The Persistent Minority”; and Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, Root Shock (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), pp. 52–70.
[>] “Good houses make good citizens”: Brad R. Tuttle, How Newark Became Newark: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of an American City (New Brunswick, NJ: Rivergate Books, 2009), p. 127.
[>] A state investigation later found: “Report for Action,” Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders, State of New Jersey, February 1968, p. 55.
[>] “one of the most volatile”: Quoted in Curvin, “The Persistent Minority,” p. 15.
[>] “In schools with high Negro enrollments”: United States Commission on Civil Rights, Hearings Before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Newark, New Jersey, September 11–12, 1962 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), p. 403. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015012165851;view=1up;seq=425.
[>] Former U.S. representative Hugh Addonizio: Jean Anyon, Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), p. 107.
[>] Newark exploded in six days: Accounts of the riots were taken from “Report for Action,” pp. 30–38; and Robert Curvin, Inside Newark (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2014), pp. 100–127.
[>] Its report stated, of urban renewal: “Report for Action,” p. 55, 82.
[>] “I think somewhere along the line”: Ibid., p. 75.
[>] In the early 1980s: Curvin, Inside Newark, pp. 280–82.
2. Seduction in Sun Valley
[>] “Mark is following up”: The emails sent by Sheryl Sandberg and Bari Mattes were obtained in an open-records lawsuit by the ACLU of New Jersey.
3. The View from Avon Avenue
[>] Nearly half of the children: The data is taken from Table 10 and explanatory notes on page 27 of Barriers to Upward Mobility: A Spatial Analysis of Newark and the Challenges to Human Development, a report by the Cornwall Center of Rutgers University. https://www.cornwall.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/files/Assesments/barriers_to_upward_mobility.pdf.
[>] “A generous description”: “Rescuing Avon Avenue School,” http://www .thechadschoolfoundation.org/avon-report2011.pdf.
[>] “an inability to captivate student interest”: This assessment comes from Avon Avenue School’s April 29, 2010, application for a federal School Improvement Grant, under a section titled “Curriculum and Quality of Instruction,” pp. 8, 9.
[>] In a series of rulings: For a history of the Abbott v. Burke litigation, see http://www.edlawcenter.org/cases/abbott-v-burke/abbott-history.html.
[>] Research had shown that children: B. Hart and T. R. Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children. (Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing, 1995), p. 132. Follow-up studies have found that these different experiences had lasting impacts on children’s performance in later years.
4. Engaging the Community
[>] “Education reform is not about”: Michael Lomax, “Education Reform: What Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee Got Wrong,” September 21, 2010. http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2010/09/what_dc_mayor_adrian_fenty_and_schools_chancellor_michelle_rhee_got_wrong_about_school_reform.html.
[>] a study revealed that in the 2012–13 school year: The Southern Education Foundation found that fifty-one percent of students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in the 2012–13 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. http://www.southerneducation.org/getattachment/4ac62e27-5260-47a5-9d02-14896ec3a531/A-New-Majority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now.aspx.
[>] Akbar Pray, a notorious drug kingpin: Examples of Pray’s messages are online at http://akbarpray.com/articles. The quoted passage was taken from a letter he wrote to students in a social studies class at Central High School. Copy in possession of the author.
[>] The total bill for the firm: The amount paid to Global Education Advisers and its individual consultants is recorded on the website of the Foundation for Newark’s Future, under “Newark Public Schools Diagnostic and Transition Phase.” http://foundationfornewarksfuture.org/grants/school-options.
[>] Bari Mattes, Booker’s fundraiser: The FNF’s payments to Mattes and Wright are reported in the foundation’s federal tax return, Form 990, for the years 2010 and 2011. See http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/27-3453412/foundation-newarks-future.aspx#forms-docs. Mattes’s city hall salary for 2010 was obtained through an Open Public Records Act request, and Wright’s pay from the Newark Charter School Fund is recorded in that organization’s federal tax return for 2010. See http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/26-2224940/newark-charter-school-fund.aspx#forms-docs.
[>] Almost all philanthropy is by definition undemocratic: See, for example, Rob Reich, “What Are Foundations For?” Boston Review, March 1, 2013. http://bostonreview.net/forum/foundations-philanthropy-democracy.
[>] This was not what Shavar Jeffries: The FNF board promised to appoint a community advisory board to inform its decisions, but it took two years to select the board, which included distinguished Newark experts on children, education, and community development—the kind of people who might have been expected to be involved from the beginning. At the same time, the advisory board’s chairman, Dr. Robert L. Johnson, dean of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a national authority in pediatrics and psychiatry, was made a full voting member of the board of trustees. But by then, most of the money had already been allocated.
5. The Rise of the Anti-Booker Candidacy
[>] Based on their eighth-grade standardized test scores: This data comes from Central High School’s April 29, 2010, application for a federal School Improvement Grant, under “Eighth Grade Performance,” p. 11.
6. Searching for Newark’s Superman
[>] Waiting for Superman had its own: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/mark-zuckerberg-at-the-movies/?ref=todayspaper.
[>] The Star-Ledger reported: David Giambusso, “The Absentee Mayor? Cory Booker’s Endless Travel Schedule Pulls Him Away from Newark,” July 15, 2012. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/07/the_absentee_mayor_cory_booker.html.
[>] Sandberg had taken charge: The quotation comes from a document written by Mark Zuckerberg and dated September 24, 2010, “Declaration of Intent to Grant,” laying out his understanding of the goals for his $100 million gift. Document in possession of the author.
7. Hi, I’m Cami
[>] After pressing Anderson: The grant is described on the foundation’s website, http://foundationfornewarksfuture.org/grants/school-options.
[>] In less than eighteen months: Payments to Avera and Breslin are reported in FNF’s tax returns for 2011 and 2012.
8. District School, Charter School
[>] Fewer than thirty percent: “State of New Jersey, NJ School Performance Report, Overview: George Washington Carver.” http://www.state.nj.us/education/pr/2013/13/133570435.pdf.
[>] Children with more than one: For a discussion of the effects of adverse childhood experiences, see Paul Tough, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), pp. 9–27.
[>] the vast amount of money: See Mark Dixon, Public Education Finances: 2012 Census of Governments, Figure 4, Public Elementary-Secondary School System Per Pupil Current Spending by State (U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau), May 2014, p. xiv. http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/12f33pub.pdf.
[>] When district officials tried: Antoinette Martin, “Newark School Office Plan: From Lease to Lawsuits,” New York Times, March 2, 2003.
[>] According to financial documents: “NPS Budget Presentation.” http://www.nps.k12.nj.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/BudgetHearing_FY1415.pdf. See p. 28 for Avon Avenue School budget and enrollment data for 2013–14.
[>] North Star had by far the highest: In reporting test scores for charter school networks, the New Jersey Department of Education reports an average score for all schools in a network. As such, it aggregates the test scores of North Star schools and TEAM schools as if each network were an individual school.
[>] A Stanford University study: Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, Stanford University, “Charter School Performance in New Jersey,” November 1, 2012. http://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/nj_state_report_2012_FINAL11272012_000.pdf.
[>] Of the high-performing charter networks: Statistics on the number and percentage of students who qualify for free lunch, by district and school, are available on the website of the New Jersey Department of Education. The percentage of free-lunch recipients in charter schools is reported as an average for all schools within a charter network. http://www.state.nj.us/education/data/enr/enr14/stat_doc.htm.
9. Transformational Change Meets the Political Sausage Factory
[>] The goal was to apply: Zuckerberg, “Declaration of Intent to Grant.”
[>] In a document given to Booker: Zuckerberg’s “Declaration of Intent to Grant” stated, “Recognizing the importance of achieving contractual reforms to the NPS district-wide effort, $60M will be directly tied to (and conditioned upon) reaching new teacher and principal contract agreements.” Fifty million dollars would be allocated “upon the negotiation and ratification” of a new teachers’ contract, $10 million for a principals’ contract. The district didn’t reach an agreement with the principals’ union, however.
[>] Zuckerberg’s document laid out similar goals: “Declaration of Intent to Grant.”
[>] After arduous negotiations: The New Jersey law, known as TEACHNJ, is available at http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2012/Bills/PL12/26_.pdf.
[>] there was growing skepticism: Two years later, the state reduced the role of standardized tests in teacher evaluations from thirty to ten percent, in recognition of the uncertainty surrounding new tests due to be given for the first time in 2015. Two years later, the state reduced the role of standardized tests in teacher evaluations from thirty to ten percent, in recognition of the uncertainty surrounding new tests due to be given for the first time in 2015.
[>] Indeed, Zuckerberg and matching donors helped: The charter enrollment data came from the Newark Charter School Fund and the New Jersey Charter Schools Association.
[>] Julian Robertson said the same: Robertson was interviewed on Bloomberg TV’s This Matters Now, July 23, 2013. A video is available at http://www.bloomberg.com/video/a-new-approach-to-investing-in-u-s-education-TDg0rP76QjaPzB2BTmctWw.html.
10. Alif Rising
[>] Carlson tested Alif: The results are taken from Carlson’s records of Alif’s performance on his first Woodcock Reading Mastery assessment in the fall of 2012.
11. The Leading Men Move On
[>] In 2005, a lone school board member: Cammarieri distributed a four-page paper, “Regarding Strategic Reform for the Newark Public Schools: An Open Statement,” at an education summit in Newark on June 4, 2005. He declared the system in crisis, addressing the statement to “Any and All Concerned with the State of Public Education in Newark.”
[>] “You’re like Joe Clark without the bat”: The reference was to the movie Lean on Me, about an inner-city high school whose principal, Joe Clark, carried a bat to keep order.
[>] Charter schools searched nationally: The operations budget for the Newark Charter School Fund designated $3.5 million to place up to two hundred new teachers at an average cost of at least $17,500 each, and $3.25 million to recruit and place up to fifteen new school leaders at an average cost of at least $217,000 each.
[>] Indeed, research had found: A 2012 study of teachers in Nashville, Tennessee, who were promised bonuses of up to $15,000 for gains in their students’ scores on state standardized tests found no impact over a three-year period on the students’ scores. https://my.vanderbilt.edu/performanceincentives/research/point-experiment.
12. One Newark, Whose Newark?
[>] Newark was on its way to becoming: National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, “A Growing Movement: America’s Largest Charter School Communities,” December 2014, p. 3. http://www.publiccharters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2014_Enrollment_Share_FINAL.pdf.
[>] Demographic data essentially pointed a dagger: The information in this paragraph comes from a PowerPoint presentation, “Building a System—One Newark,” developed from district data by the Parthenon Group, October 2013.
[>] In a focus group arranged by the district: The focus group of sixteen parents and guardians of children in district and charter schools was conducted on April 15, 2014, by United Way on behalf of the district’s Office of Family and Community Engagement. Quotes were taken from a district document summarizing the questions and answers.
[>] With no data yet showing: An internal NPS document summarizing the results of the 2014 One Newark enrollment process, “Data Request: Enrollment Data,” reports that 48.6 percent of all applications to kindergarten—1,560 of a total of 3,211—listed charters as a first choice.
[>] Asked during his 2013 reelection: Jeanette Rundquist, “Christie to Newark: We Run the School District,” Newark Star-Ledger, September 5, 2013. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/09/christie_to_newark_we_run_the_school_district.html.
[>] They and national unions: The campaign contributions to Baraka, Shavar Jeffries, and independent expenditure campaigns waged on their behalf are available at www.elec.state.nj.us. A list of financial-industry contributions to Jeffries and union contributions to Baraka was compiled by a blogger, Darcie Cimarusti: http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com/2014/05/newark-mayoral-race-wall-street.html.