Has Zuckerberg's $100 million for public schools made a difference?

Newark, New Jersey (My9NJ) - Cory Booker made national headlines when the then-Newark mayor announced on "Oprah" in 2010 that he had received $100 million from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg to help reform public schools.

Booker, now a U.S. senator, later held a news conference with Governor Chris Christie and Zuckerberg surrounded by kids promising to make education a No. 1 priority in Newark.

The problem, some say, is that five years later Newark public schools haven't really improved.

“The kids in the Newark schools are not performing better. In fact, NJ Ask Standardized Tests scores have gone down over the last 5 years, not up,” author, Dale Russakoff stated. 

Russakoff wrote about the issue in her book, "The Prize: Who's In Charge Of America's Schools?" and has been following the millions since it was given.

“The plans that they ultimately implemented were not sort of grand transformational plans at all. They did expand charter schools. They put the number of kids from charter schools on a path to double,” Russakoff said.

In her book Russakoff says that almost $50 million went to teachers' contracts and $20 million to consultants. But there are questions on where is the rest of the $100 million was even spent.

"What hasn't happened is they had said they would also transform the district schools and that hasn't happened," Russakoff said.