Chris Cerf, Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2004

N.J. ACTING SCHOOLS CHIEF FACES QUESTIONS ABOUT TRANSPARENCY, IMPERILING HIS CONFIRMATION; Sunday, March 13; The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) 

In February 2007, Christopher Cerf was a newly hired deputy chancellor in the New York City school system when he was asked at a public forum to describe his financial interest in Edison Schools Inc., a for-profit education company he once headed.

"I’d be delighted to do that," Cerf replied, according to a published account of the meeting. "I have no financial interest in Edison of any kind. Zero."

Asked by the president of a parents group when he had relinquished the shares, Cerf said he would be "delighted" to provide his financial disclosure form.

Then he clammed up.

What Cerf declined to volunteer is that he had given up the shares just the day before.

In fact, Cerf was under no obligation to rescind his stake in Edison. But his unwillingness to fully answer the question that day would lead to unflattering headlines, public criticism and an investigation by the school system’s Special Commissioner of Investigation.

Four years later, the man who represents perhaps the most important nomination of Gov. Chris Christie’s tenure is again facing questions about his openness, imperiling his confirmation as education commissioner at a time when the governor has made education reform one of his top priorities…

Separately, state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) says Cerf lied to him in a conversation, contending the acting commissioner denied having close ties to Newark Mayor Cory Booker, with whom Rice does not get along. Cerf has long had an interest in the Newark schools and has been described as an informal adviser to Booker on education issues.

In a series of telephone interviews and in dozens of e-mails to Star-Ledger reporters and editors, Cerf said he has done nothing inappropriate, bristling at the suggestion he would ever leverage public office for private gain. He also denied misleading Rice, saying the two have had several "open and candid conversations about a range of issues."…

Asked about Booker, Cerf declined to characterize his relationship with the mayor.

Christie has accused Rice of playing politics with the nomination, and a spokesman for the governor said Christie stands firmly behind his pick…

[Cerf]…studied history at Amherst College, graduating near the top of his class, before landing his first and only teaching job at the prestigious Cincinnati Country Day School, a private prep school in Ohio…

After four years in Cincinnati, Cerf left teaching for Columbia Law School…

…In 1997, he took the job of general counsel for Edison Schools, which had been founded five years earlier with the guiding principle that a private, for-profit company could better educate students — and do it more cheaply — than public schools. By 2001, Cerf was the company’s president.

Under Cerf’s tenure, Edison grew into the largest private-sector manager of public schools, educating some 77,000 students in 150 schools around the country. But its legacy has been decidedly mixed.

Some studies showed stronger achievement gains among Edison-educated students. Others did not. In 2007, a Rand Corp. study that examined Edison’s control of 20 schools in Philadelphia found "no statistically significant effects," positive or negative, in reading or math in the four years after Edison stepped in.

One by one, districts canceled their contracts with the company, which lost tens of millions of dollars. Its stock price, a record-high $36.75 in 2001, later fell to pennies per share.

Three years ago, Edison changed its name to EdisonLearning. Today, it manages 17 district schools and 42 charter schools across the country. It makes much of its income through tutoring services and educational software…

Cerf left the company in 2005, forming a consulting firm he called the Public Private Strategy Group. In short order, he was hired as a full-time adviser to Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City school system and Cerf’s former law colleague in Washington…

Cerf moved to give principals more autonomy over their schools, pushed for a teacher evaluation system that took student test scores into account, shuttered 100 failing schools and opened dozens of new charter schools…

Cerf had a less cordial relationship with Tim Johnson, a former chairman of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, a volunteer group that serves as an umbrella organization for parent associations in the city’s roughly 1,500 public schools.

In February 2007, it was Johnson who challenged Cerf about his ownership of Edison stock.

Despite his stance, the department’s investigative arm, the Special Commisioner of Investigation, opened a probe into the matter. It found that when Cerf gave up his shares in Edison via e-mail, he asked that in return, a charitable contribution of $60,000 be made to the Darrow Foundation, a nonprofit group that runs a wilderness camp for disadvantaged children. Cerf serves on Darrow’s board.

After he was interviewed by the investigator, Richard Condon, Cerf rescinded the donation request, which had not yet been filled, according to Condon’s report…

Cerf left his city post in 2009 to help run Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s re-election campaign, which was seen as a referendum on his restructuring of the school system.

Soon after, he took a position as president and chief executive officer of Sangari Global Education, a private, Brazil-based company that sells science curricula to school districts, mainly overseas.

It was in May of last year, while still president of Sangari, that Cerf and a partner, Rajeev Bajaj, formed Global Education Advisors, the consulting company based at Cerf’s home address in Montclair. Bajaj, whom Cerf met in the New York City schools, also is a Sangari executive.

Booker, using a $500,000 grant solicited from a California foundation, hired the consulting firm to perform a comprehensive assessment of the Newark district’s enrollment figures, test scores and facilities.

The firm also issued a set of recommendations to close some failing schools and, in their place, open 11 charter schools and five new district schools — a proposal that has caused an uproar among parents. Cerf, as education commissioner, would have final say over the proposal in the state-run district…

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ACTING N.J. EDUCATION CHIEF CERF REVISES ACCOUNT OF TIES TO CONSULTING FIRM; February 24, 2011,The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) 

A controversial consultant’s report recommending that some of Newark’s worst public schools be replaced with charter schools was funded by a $500,000 grant from a California educational foundation at the behest of Mayor Cory Booker.

The revelation came in an interview with officials at the foundation late Wednesday. It followed two days in which the mayor declined to provide details about the report: who funded it or the amount spent on it.

Contacted by the Star-Ledger, the spokeswoman for the Broad Foundation in Los Angeles readily acknowledged it put up the money that was used to retain Global Education Advisors to conduct an audit of the city’s schools. The spokeswoman said she wondered why the grant was kept secret.

The consulting firm, incorporated by Christopher D. Cerf before he was named the state’s acting education commissioner, has itself become the focus of growing questions over its ties to the commissioner and the mysterious way it was selected…

State campaign finance records also show Cerf gave a $1,000 contribution to the re-election campaign of Booker just a month before Global Education Advisors was incorporated by Cerf.

Cerf says his motives have been mischaracterized…

At issue are concerns some have raised over whether Cerf would be conflicted as commissioner by his connections to a firm whose recommendations he may have helped draft or inspire. If implemented, the proposals call for closing or consolidating several Newark schools whose students continue to fail year after year, replacing them with charter schools and some new district schools throughout the city. Critics say because of the ties, Cerf could end up being on both ends of the reform process in Newark: The company founded by Cerf the reformer makes proposals that are then approved by Cerf the commissioner…

However, Cerf’s public explanations varied from earlier statements just a day earlier, when he said he had done little more than lend his address for the incorporation papers…

"Everything was kept in secret," [Advisory Board Vice Chairwoman Barbara King] complained. "We never knew about these schools that would close. If we had known, we could have involved the community. No one wants to learn things after the fact."

When they met in November, King said the consultants told the board members they were doing no more than gathering diagnostic data about the school district…

The mayor confirmed that the grant money came from Broad but declined to say who was in charge of contracting the consulting firm, though he said it was not him. However, the Broad Foundation said the money was channeled to the Foundation for Newark’s Future, the nonprofit created to raise $100 million to match Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbeg’s gift to the city…

[Spokeswoman Erica Lepping] said Global Education Advisors had been selected by the Foundation for Newark’s Future, but could not say on what grounds the consultants were selected.

The Broad Foundation funded similar audits of other urban school systems, she said, most recently in Washington, D.C., and Detroit.

Lepping noted as well that the audit was not intended to make recommendations, just assert facts.

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Read more at NYC Public School Parents, “Chris Cerf: there you go again” (March 13, 2011)