While many say they are pleased with the selection of Cami Anderson, seen here with Gov. Christie, some are critical of search process
Cami Anderson takes questions during a May 4 press conference with Gov. Chris Christie when she was formally nominated to be Newark's next superintendent.NEWARK — When more than two dozen community leaders approached the National Newark Building on a blustery Saturday morning in mid-March, they expected to interview candidates seeking to become Newark’s next school superintendent.
What they found instead was a handwritten note taped to the security desk at the Broad Street skyscraper. The note said the meeting of the Newark Public Education Task Force, a superintendent search advisory group, had been canceled.
That was the first of a few scrapped opportunities for Newarkers to have a say in selecting the city’s next schools chief, task force members said.
While many community leaders say they are pleased with New York City senior superintendent Cami Anderson’s selection and excited about her potential to transform the city’s troubled public school system, at least six members of the task force were deeply critical of the search process, which one called "murky."
Among the flaws, they said, were a late start to the search, a small pool of candidates and a delay in being notified about potential candidates. Overall, they said, they were concerned about whether community leaders would have a real voice in the selection of someone to lead the 38,000-student, state-run district.
"I felt very surprised that people like the (education) commissioner and the governor hammer this mantra of ‘school choice, school choice, school choice,’ yet we didn’t have much choice in reviewing candidates," said Richard Cammarieri, a task force member.
Acting state Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf defended what he called a robust level of community engagement, adding that in other cities, notably Chicago, far less community outreach was conducted.
Interviews with task force members and recordings obtained by The Star-Ledger of the advisory group’s confidential meetings reveal an eight-month search marked by starts, stops and disorganization.
The search for someone to lead the state’s largest school district technically began in September, after Gov. Chris Christie chose not to renew the contract of superintendent Clifford Janey. That same month, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that he was donating $100 million to the city’s schools.
In November, Christie, Mayor Cory Booker and Winfrey all tried coaxing New York Senior Deputy Education Commissioner John King to cross the Hudson and run the district, but he declined, task force members said.
"He was very actively wooed," Cerf said in a taped meeting with the task force.
In late December, Christie nominated Cerf, a former New York City schools deputy chancellor, as his education commissioner and the superintendent search picked up momentum.
Cerf quickly approached Anderson, his former colleague and a former consultant to Booker’s unsuccessful 2002 mayoral campaign, to gauge her interest in the job, according to a person who works with Anderson but is not at liberty to discuss the situation publicly. Booker assisted Cerf in vetting other candidates, the mayor said during a New York public radio interview.
"There was no search firm hired, there was no action taken, (the search) just kind of sat there," Cerf said, referring to the effort that preceded his arrival, on a tape of a meeting with the task force in March. "Look, it is not a deep bench out there."
Though Newark has been in the national spotlight since the Zuckerberg donation, other large cities were courting superintendents at the same time, and Newark lost top talent to competitors in at least two instances.
Former New York City Deputy Chancellor John White and former Rochester, N.Y., Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard both appeared on shortlists of candidates for the Newark job. But White accepted an offer to run New Orleans’ Recovery School District and Brizard said yes when Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel called asking him to run that city’s schools.
The men rebuffed Newark’s advances partly because the search was taking so long and partly because education reform in the city had once again become contentious, several task force members said.
With help from global executive search firm Spencer Stuart, whose two executives agreed to work pro bono, the state considered 200 candidates, Cerf recently said. The task force only met with four, leading some to question the true scope of the search, several task force members said.
Clement Price, a Rutgers-Newark professor and historian who chaired the task force, said the search process was quite different from the one that former Gov. Jon Corzine launched in 2008 to find Janey.
"First of all, it was a much more civically or community-engaged process," Price said of the earlier search. "It enabled us to go into every ward of the city to get a sense of what people in Newark wanted or believed they wanted in their superintendent."
Ultimately, the task force interviewed Anderson, former Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, New York City Deputy Chancellor for Community Engagement Santiago Taveras and interim Newark Superintendent Deborah Terrell.
Some members said Anderson was the only viable candidate of those four.
"We picked a great candidate out of one, a great one out of one," said a member of the task force not authorized to speak publicly about the process. "If we had considered four people who could really do this job, it would have strengthened Ms. Anderson’s candidacy and selection in the eyes of community leaders."
Goodloe-Johnson had a long record of experience, but she had been let go in March amid a $1.8 million financial scandal involving a district business development program, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.
Neither Taveras nor Terrell had enough experience, the task force member said.
"I like Deborah, I think she’s a talented person and I think she’s a serious candidacy," Cerf said in a taped meeting with the task force. "This is not the time or the season."
Despite the bumps in the road that eventually led to Anderson, community leaders said they are equally pleased with her selection.
"While I was very upset and disappointed with this process, if a process is ultimately judged by its outcome, we have a tremendous outcome," said Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Essex), a task force member.
Price said Anderson is well-positioned to build on the positive contributions of past school leaders.
"The history of Newark superintendents shows that they have each made a contribution. I don’t see why she will not as well," Price said. "Will she be the superwoman we’ve been waiting for? Time will tell."
Staff writer David Giambusso contributed to this report.