NEWARK, N.J. – In late 2010, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to announce a $100 million donation to help turn around New Jersey’s chronically awful Newark school district.

The state-controlled district “invested” nearly half of Zuckerberg’s donation in its 2012 contract with the Newark Teachers Union.  The contract allowed for merit pay and a peer-review component in determining teacher evaluations, and was hailed by Gov. Chris Christie and union officials “as an example of adversaries joining forces to rebuild a struggling urban school district,” the Associated Press reports.

But over the past couple of years, relations between Newark’s school and union leaders have steadily deteriorated to the point where the two sides appear more suited for “The Jerry Springer Show” than the Oprah show.

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The biggest bone of contention involves the district’s plan to lay off of some 1,000 teachers over the next three years to bring staffing levels in line with its declining student enrollment. Layoffs are inevitable as enrollment continues to drop. In 2003, 75,000 students were enrolled in the district. Today, there are only 36,000 students, the AP notes.

Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson has asked the state Department of Education to allow the layoffs to be based on teacher performance along with years of service, instead of just teacher seniority, the AP reports.

Anderson says that using “last in, first out” rules to determine layoffs would result in 75 percent of layoffs would affect educators who are rated effective or highly effective, NJ.com reports.

“If performance is allowed to be a factor, the district says, no highly effective teachers would be laid off, and only 35 percent of effective teachers would be let go,” NJ.com adds.

The Newark Teachers Union and its parent union – the American Federation of Teachers – are crying foul over Anderson’s request.

AFT President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten “wrote an open letter to (Gov.) Christie complaining that the … plan is nothing more than a ploy to gut public education and replace experienced teachers with a cheaper, less experienced workforce,” the AP writes.

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Weingarten also blamed Anderson for the district’s lack of money, claiming the superintendent has shown “a failure of fiscal stewardship.”

But NTU President Joseph Del Grosso kicked the legs out from under Weingarten’s claim when he moaned to NJ.com that laying off ineffective, senior teachers was unfair because it would jeopardize their chance of receiving “lifetime health benefits.”

Such teachers would suffer “irreparable harm,” Del Grosso said.

Only in “unionland” is the guarantee of lifetime health benefits considered a sacred right, regardless of the school district’s extreme budget problems.

And only in Big Labor circles is it appropriate for the financial interests of adults to trump the learning needs of students.

The union recently won a symbolic victory when their pet politicians in state Senate approved a resolution calling Anderson’s waiver request “an attempt to usurp the authority of the Legislature,” the AP notes.

Regardless of the Legislature’s feelings, the state Department of Education will have the final say on Anderson’s request, though it’s unclear when the decision will be made, NJ.com reports.