Three Remain in Running for Newark Schools Post
The Times provides a helpful overview of the search for a new Newark school district superintendent—a $270,000/year position that is at the center of an entrenched political power struggle.
With more school control likely to return to the city from the state, the individual filling this role will have a large part to play in shaping Newark’s future and Mayor Cory Booker’s political career.
The change in leadership comes as the long-struggling, 42,000-student Newark district is poised to return to local control for the first time since a takeover by the state in 1995.
The process of selecting a new superintendent has been closely followed by educators, parents and advocates here who see an acute need for a viable school system in Newark—a city plagued with high crime and unemployment—as it struggles to revive itself.
“With its location and resources, Newark could be so much more than what it is,” said Derrell Bradford, deputy director of Excellent Education for Everyone, an advocacy group for school choice here that had Mayor Cory A. Booker among its founders. “The only way it will realize that dream is by fixing its schools.”