Ronald C. Rice
Ron C. Rice has over 25 years of experience in public policy, political campaign management, PK-12 education, urban development and community empowerment initiatives, as an executive state government appointee, a two-term local elected official, a candidate for Congress, a registered federal lobbyist and a veteran of more than 40 local, county, state and federal political battles.
- Public policy
- Campaigns
- PK-12 education
- Government relations
- Community
Elected, appointed, a candidate and an advocate
Ron represented Newark’s West Ward on the Municipal Council for two terms, served as a senior appointee at the New Jersey Department of Education, ran for Congress in 2012 and spent twelve years as a registered federal lobbyist for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. He has run, managed or advised more than 40 campaigns at every level of government.
He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and 100 Black Men of New Jersey, a graduate of American University in Washington, DC with a degree in Political Science and Public Administration, and holds his Juris Doctor from Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark.
He learned campaigns by running his father’s
Ron learned how to run campaigns in running his father’s campaigns for city council and for the New Jersey State Senate. His father, State Senator Ronald L. Rice, was the longest-serving African-American state senator in New Jersey history. Ron also served as then-Councilman Sharpe James’s youth campaign coordinator in his first successful campaign for Mayor of Newark, was the Assistant Essex County Coordinator for Governor Jim Florio’s re-election campaign, and served as the first African-American President of the Essex County Young Democrats.
As a candidate for Newark City Council in 2002, Ron was featured in the Academy Award-nominated documentary Street Fight. He was the first elected official in the state of New Jersey to endorse then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama, and served as the Essex County Coordinator for Obama for America in 2008. In 2012 he ran for a congressional seat, unsuccessfully, with the endorsement of the state’s largest newspaper, the majority of his city council colleagues and the most labor unions in the race.
Legislation that changed how Newark worked
As a Newark Municipal Councilman, Ron sponsored legislation that reformed the city’s ethics laws, rehabilitated abandoned properties, created the city’s Environmental, African and LGBT Commissions, installed vehicular speed-calming measures, and provided jobs through his project labor agreement and “Ban the Box” laws, the most comprehensive in the nation at that time.
From the Department of Education to the charter sector
Ron served as the Special Assistant and Chief Policy Analyst for the Chief of Staff to the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE). He oversaw the creation of departmental regulations for the state Supreme Court’s Abbott v. Burke decision, which increased state education funding for New Jersey’s 31 special-needs districts to the level of its wealthiest school districts. He also served as a spokesman for the NJDOE and as the department’s coordinator for the state’s Regional Day Schools.
On the council, Ron created his ward’s Education Support Committee and consistently supported charter school facility needs, growth and advancement throughout Newark, working specifically with TEAM (Rise and SPARK Academies), Uncommon Schools (North Star Academy) and community charters such as Marion P. Thomas Charter School, Lady Liberty Academy and Adelaide Sanford Charter School.
Twelve years lobbying Congress for public charter schools
As a federal lobbyist for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools for twelve years, Ron single-handedly increased congressional Democratic support for charter school priorities from 5 members to 48, an almost tenfold increase, worked with his team to increase appropriations funding from $254 million to $500 million, an almost 100 percent increase, and successfully pushed back against harmful Administration regulations aimed at the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP).
He also created the most visible and sustained federal lobbying cohort of charter school leaders of color, and led it for seven years, including its annual Day on the Hill advocacy training.
Service and a public record
Ron has created and served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Joint Meeting of Essex and Union Counties, where he also served as chair, Newark NOW, the Essex County Municipal Council Exchange, the Diverse Charter School Coalition, the National Charter Collaborative and the Maryland Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
He has appeared in Ebony magazine, PolitickerNJ.com, BlueJersey.com, the New York Times, My9 News and the Star-Ledger, has received numerous awards, and was quoted in the 2009 book by television commentator Gwen Ifill, Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, and in Dr. Andra Gillespie’s 2013 The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America. More recently he has appeared on numerous school reform podcasts and on Roland Martin Unfiltered.
Bring him the objective, the race or the room
Government relations, a campaign or a candidacy, a coalition, a community that has to be won over, or a stage that needs a speaker who has sat on both sides of the dais.