Who is Chris Cerf? An Investigation (Christie's Commissioner of Education)
I was going to add this to the thread about Newark Schools, but I think it deserves its own thread.
Who is Chris Cerf? An investigation
by: Jersey Jazzman
Sun Jan 02, 2011 at 07:20:47 PM EST
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What the press hasn't done, however, is take a long, hard look at Cerf's career. If they did, they would find little cause for hope: Cerf, like Christie, is a political creature who has consistently let corporate and elite interests dictate educational policies. He has pushed ethical boundaries to the limit, enriching himself and others with actions that are not in the public's best interest.
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• Cerf was president of Edison when the company's stock tanked and Edison was on the verge of collapse. He and Whittle found a white knight, however, that used money from one source to buy out the firm: the Florida teachers pension. There is ample evidence that the deal was structured solely to placate then-Governor Jeb Bush, a staunch "school choice" proponent.
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• Cerf was later investigated for seeking a donation for a favored cause from the investment firm that had put together the Edison buyout. While the investigators found he had acted improperly, no action against him was taken; when the report was released later, it was heavily redacted - by Cerf's own department.
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• Cerf put together a group of NYC-DOE staffers to monitor critics of Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, going so far as to videotape speeches by critics. The "files" kept on critics like Diane Ravitch were fed to outside groups to be used in rebuttals.
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http://www.bluejersey.com/diary/17522/who-is-chris-cerf-an-investigation
And here he is smirking at us:
http://www.state.nj.us/education/genfo/overview/bio.htm