The Prize (26 page)

Anderson's first opportunity came at Thirteenth Avenue School. It was to be consolidated with nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, which the superintendent was closing. At both schools, barely
twenty percent of children were reading at grade level. Thirteenth Avenue had about six hundred students, from kindergarten through eighth grade, but only twenty-five parents showed up to learn about the big changes afoot. If this was the real community, it appeared to align with neither Anderson nor the angry protesters. Rather, parents seemed constitutionally incapable of trusting anyone who promised to fix public education. “I went to school here myself. So did my nieces, my brothers, my sisters, and now my daughter. I don't see why it has to change,” Seleta Carter, mother of a seventh grader, said afterward. Asked about the dismal proficiency scores, Carter said they were indeed a concern, but she pointed out that her own daughter was proficient in both reading and math. How did she account for that? “I choose her teachers,” Carter said. “If I don't like the teacher, I move her.” Carter estimated that forty percent of the school's teachers were below par, and she considered it her responsibility as a parent to steer her daughter clear of them. If other parents were equally engaged, she said, their children would perform better.

In other words, Carter viewed dysfunction as a given in the Newark schools, and she spent her social capital shielding her daughter from it. The same was true for most of the two dozen other parents at the meeting. Among hundreds of Thirteenth Avenue School parents, they were the small core investing time and energy in classrooms. When they had concerns, administrators tended to listen. This was their definition of school choice: the ability to maneuver a child out of the path of inevitable disaster. Anderson's and the reformers' vision of choice—replacing the dysfunctional system with a “portfolio” of excellent schools from which parents could choose the best “fit” for their children—sounded like yet another promise that never would materialize. Anderson's mantra, “All means all,” rang noble, but in Carter's life, her daughter was her all, and she couldn't imagine a system that would do right by her, much less kids who ran with gangs, were years behind grade level, or cut class. If Anderson scrambled the staff, sending away some teachers and recruiting others purported to
be more effective, how would Carter know where to move her daughter in the likely event that the upheaval changed nothing?

Soon after the Thirteenth Avenue meeting, Anderson also made a presentation to the Newark Trust for Education, an umbrella organization of local foundations and nonprofits that had been working in the schools for decades. Several of Newark's more esteemed leaders warned Anderson against moving full speed ahead without the community behind her. Robert Curvin spoke with the authority of a lifelong Newark resident with a Princeton PhD in political science who had been a civil rights leader in the 1960s, an editorial writer for the
New York Times
, a vice president of the Ford Foundation, and a dean at the New School. “I urge you to back up and think about implanting a deeper understanding,” he admonished. “This is Newark. There's a lot of history, particularly the episode last year with the leaked report. There's deep anger about what school closings mean.”

“I use the word ‘trauma,'” said Clement Price, the Rutgers professor of Newark history. “This is a city that perceives itself as always losing things.”

“I get it,” Anderson responded. “But there's real tension between talking about it and doing it. This requires a leap of faith and moving faster than is comfortable.”

“Leaps of faith are not possible under these conditions,” Curvin said. “You have to be very concrete.”

“I hear you,” the superintendent said, “but I lose sleep over kids stuck in a school when they're losing ground.”

A month later, Anderson held a redo of her Renew schools announcement, a press conference with invited guests only and several speakers with Newark credentials: a prominent minister, a respected district principal, Booker, the district's Newark-born preschool director, school board president Jeffries. It was held at Quitman Street Community School in the Central Ward, one of those targeted for renewal.

In her turn at the microphone, Anderson made an astonishing prediction for the Renew schools: “We are striving for fifty percent proficiency within two years, seventy-five percent within four . . . If we pick the right principals, my hope is that we're actually going to do better than that.” At none of the schools were more than thirty percent of students then performing at grade level in reading or math. And Anderson would not name the new principals until May or June, leaving them at most three months to recruit teachers, engage parents, and reimagine their schools in time for the fall.

The following Monday, Alison Avera, Anderson's interim chief of staff, strode into the leadership team meeting with arms raised Rocky-style, declaring that the media event had “really kicked ass.” Everyone around the table agreed it was infinitely better than round one, but some team members were troubled that parents were not invited. One senior deputy had stayed outside talking to Quitman's PTA president and local activists, who were not on Anderson's guest list and were barred by security guards from attending. “It fed into the old Newark story: big things are happening and we're the last to know,” he remarked.

Despite the rushed time frame, principals selected by Anderson to lead Renew schools viewed them as the opportunity of a lifetime. In the past, none had been allowed to select their own teachers or to build a staff around a shared vision of transforming a school. Chaleeta Barnes, at thirty-two, was the principal of Dayton Street School, which was closing and merging into Peshine Avenue School, a mile away in the South Ward. Simultaneously plucky and businesslike, Barnes kept school interesting, even down to her hairstyle, which changed every few weeks, from bouffant to doobie to ponytail. Barnes was tapped to lead the consolidated school, and she chose as her vice principals Tameshone Lewis, a Newark-born teacher and administrator, and Sabrina Meah, a former district teacher who had helped lead a Newark charter school for a decade.

It was striking to witness a conversation about school closings led
by trusted local educators rather than by Anderson. At first Dayton parents were enraged by the announcement that their neighborhood school was closing. “My baby is
not
going to ride a bus,” one mother after the next declared to Barnes, upon learning their children would be bused to Peshine. Dozens of parents converged for a meeting at Peshine's library, where the petite principal greeted them with a dazzling smile, wearing her Dayton uniform of light blue polo shirt and navy slacks. She radiated excitement, but also firm insistence.

“I know with all the changes we feel unsure, fearful. I get it. I hear you: ‘They're pushing us around—
again!
'” she said, airing the issue of disrespect before anyone had a chance to raise it. “But trust me, this is our time. This is where you want to be. This is where you want your
children
to be.” She told them about the advantages of a longer school day, a team of dedicated teachers, more computers in every classroom, field trips to reinforce classroom learning.

“It's very evident we are low-performing schools. But we are going to change that together,” Barnes went on, with conviction. “Nobody wants to drop a child off at a failing school. Nobody wants to work at a failing school. No longer will anyone in this school accept failure and think it's okay. It is so
not
okay.” She answered all of the parents' questions with candor. Several, including early opponents, rose to say they were now on board.

“It is going to be a lot of work, but are we ready for it?” Barnes asked. “
Yes!
” the parents chorused, and several applauded. The district had ordered a dinner for the parents, and as they filed out of the library, heading for the cafeteria, the caterer waited to have a private moment with Barnes. Patting the young principal's arm, she flashed a smile of admiration and declared, “Honey, I love your attitude. You're like Joe Clark without the bat!”

Chaleeta Barnes had a level of influence with parents that Anderson couldn't muster, even with Christie's state powers at her back. She was a true daughter of Newark. Her mother had taught at Dayton for more than thirty-five years, and both of her parents were products of the city's public schools. Barnes herself had taught for five years
at Peshine and five at Dayton before becoming its principal. Peshine parents remembered her organizing a cheerleading squad, then sewing all the uniforms when the district couldn't afford to pay for them. Dayton parents recounted how she had overseen movie nights and after-school dance classes in a community where children had nowhere safe to go after school. And she had a reputation as a hawk on excellence for all students, including those with serious learning disabilities.

Tameshone Lewis, the vice principal, was known for persuading even the most rebellious children to try their best. She had survived a harrowing Newark childhood—daughter of a crack addict, the only one of five children to graduate from high school and college. She told students that if she could make it academically, they could make it too. Their survival depended on it, she said.

“Kids tell me they can't succeed because they've been abused, and I say, I understand that. They say they've been rejected by their parents, and I say, I understand that. They say they don't know their father, and I say, I understand that. They say, ‘Come on, Ms. Lewis, no way you grew up in a dirty, filthy house,' and I say, I understand that. Then they'll say, ‘Ms. Lewis, can you bring me a toothbrush? Can I get a water from your fridge? Can I call you when I need to talk?'”

Barnes and both vice principals, Lewis and Meah, knocked on every door on all four blocks surrounding Peshine, inviting neighbors to attend a summer barbecue with parents and kids. Lewis seemed to know someone in every building. A woman in a nightgown called down from atop a flight of stairs to say that she couldn't come because she was sleeping in. “Fran, get your behind in a dress and come out here!” Lewis yelled, prompting screams of laughter. The two had worked together at the Department of Motor Vehicles when Lewis was in high school.

Barnes formed a partnership with
BRICK
, the teachers leading the turnaround effort at Avon Avenue, and they offered lessons from the front lines, particularly on selecting teachers. Dominique Lee, the
BRICK
founder, told Peshine's leaders to look primarily for ability and
mindset—teachers deeply concerned about the injustices of poverty and also eager to improve their instruction. “If the mindset and the intelligence are there, we can coach them into being good and then great teachers,” he said. “Don't expect ready-made greatness. Most teachers in NPS haven't been coached. How many principals are instructional leaders?”

All summer, Barnes, Lewis, and Meah held weekly parent meetings at the hulking, hundred-year-old Peshine building, soliciting input as they designed the new school program. How many nights a week should students have homework? Every night, came the answer. How can we ensure parents check it? Tell the kids we have to sign it, the parents said. Fewer than thirty parents came to the first meeting, but more than fifty came to the second, and by the last meeting, in late August, the auditorium was packed with more than two hundred parents, who cheered loudly as Barnes introduced the leadership team and teachers. Crystal Williams, the mother of a fifth grader, asked to address the crowd. “My husband and I came here not too happy with our experience with the last principal,” she said. “At that first meeting, we came at Ms. Barnes growling, and she said, ‘Calm down and give me a chance.' We kept coming and we saw changes, we saw excitement. We saw people who were happy. I said maybe there's going to be a change here. And look at us tonight, Ms. Barnes! Look at all these people! What happened before is before. Now, we can really do this. Yes we can!”

Having won the battle for hearts and minds that had bested Anderson, Lewis, Barnes, and Meah turned to the challenges of education in the city's lowest-income ward. They coordinated efforts to support struggling students, address discipline, and increase the rigor of instruction. They won the parents' endorsement for raising expectations, for both achievement and behavior. They cultivated esprit de corps among teachers, who said they had rarely felt so much support from supervisors.

But as at
BRICK
Avon, teachers did daily battle with the legacy of poor schooling, poverty, and Newark's permeating violence. Shakel
Nelson, a fifth-grade math teacher who graduated from Newark schools and had taught for fourteen years, brought notable skills and determination to the challenge. She persuaded struggling learners to articulate what confused them, then drew classmates into helping them over the hump, with a result that students of all skill levels were engaged. When she realized that few students knew their multiplication tables, which typically were taught by third grade, Nelson turned them into rhyming chants—“. . . sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, that is how we roll our fours”—to make them easier and more fun to learn. Her devotion to her students was evident in how hard she worked, and they rewarded her with consistent attention and excellent behavior. When results of state tests arrived in 2014, fifth-grade math students, of whom Nelson taught all but a handful, had by far the highest proficiency rate at Peshine—fifty-seven percent. Based on their scores from the previous year, the fifth graders' growth outpaced that of sixty percent of the state. This was a tremendous achievement. But it also meant that, even with the benefit of an extraordinary teacher, more than forty percent of the fifth grade still came up short.