is really appalling when you think about it. He hires the firm started by the NJ education commissioner, Chris Cerf, to investigate and overhaul failing public schools. That firm recommends that some of the worst schools be replaced by charter schools. The study was funded by money from private donors, one of whom was apparently the Eli Broad Foundation.
The Perdido Street blog covers this issue. Apparently Cerf did not want the
Newark Star Ledger to cover it.That's pretty nervy, to say the least.
From Perdido Street School blog:
Now Cerf Changes His Tune On Newark Education Auditing BusinessChris Cerf didn't want the Newark Star Ledger to publish the story that Newark Mayor Cory Booker hired an education reform firm started by Chris Cerf back in May 2010 that STILL operates out of Cerf's house in Montclair, New Jersey, because "Cerf did not think it was very important."
Booker could not say how much money the city of Newark has paid Cerf's firm or where the money came from - only that it was raised from outside donations.
Cerf maintained that nothing illicit or unethical was going on with this, that he had no ties to the firm anymore and had cut his ties right before he got named to permanently replace former NJ Education Commissioner Bret Schundler as the state's top education official.
Now the Newark Star Ledger says Cerf has "revised" his story just one day after saying that the story wasn't important at all and the paper shouldn't publish it.
The firm operates out of the house of the Education Commissioner, but he denies any ties to it? Wow!
The blog then links to NJ.com
Acting N.J. education chief Cerf revises account of ties to consulting firmA 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.
I wonder also why the grant was kept secret. Must be all those education reformers don't want to be too open about what they are doing.
Here is more from an article the day before.
Acting N.J. education chief founded consulting firm hired to overhaul failing Newark schoolsA consulting firm hired by Newark’s mayor to overhaul the city’s failing schools was founded a few months ago by Christopher D. Cerf, the state’s acting education commissioner, and still lists his Montclair home as its New Jersey address.
The firm, Global Education Advisors, is at the heart of a controversial proposal to open nearly a dozen new charter schools — a move that would reshuffle thousands of city kids and one that has already drawn angry response from parents.
Cerf acknowledged Tuesday that he had a hand in the creation of the firm, but said he was no longer connected with it. He said he is now merely lending his address to the consulting firm because it needed a New Jersey mailing address. "When this little consulting company was formed, I was part of the creation of it," he said. "I severed my relationship to it literally right after its formation. I have never received any compensation from it."
Newark area will have some very active education reformers in their future. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame has donated 100 million to the school system there, so he will be most likely playing a role as well.
Christie, Booker, Zuckerberg and Newark schools....questions of legality?It’s a newly popular idea: New Jersey’s public schools fail. An idea promoted by politicians on the national prowl, privatizers who’ll sell anything for a profit, and clueless celebrities who live thousands of miles away and believe Tony Soprano really lives here.
New Jersey has some of the best public schools in the nation. Ask admissions directors of the most selective colleges — the Ivies and Stanford and MIT and liberal arts colleges like Amherst and Haverford. Check out results from national tests like the National Assessment of Educational Progress — New Jersey ranks in the top five.
Some of the best schools — because it has some of the richest communities in the nation. The state also has some of the worst public schools — because it also has some of the poorest and most racially segregated communities in America. Wealth and achievement are inextricably linked. Give the College Board, the agency that produces the SAT Reasoning Test, your family income numbers and your race and educational level of your parents and it will predict your scores and almost always be right.
A Rutgers law professor had this to say about all the private money pouring into the public schools there.
"This is a very dangerous moment for public education," says Paul Tractenberg, the Rutgers law professor who knows the link between money and schooling. "Instead of facing up to our responsibilities to support the schools, we are tearing them apart. We are destroying the very values that created the public school system."
I had found a post in the comment section after the Zuckerberg article. It gets right to the point.
What you fail to miss is that this is a governor and a mayor essentially allowing the takeover of a major public school district by a private enterprise. That alone is illegal and in my view immoral. Anyone who thinks that shutting down public schools by a governor at whim is not a major threat to our democracy then they need to take off the blinders. This act goes against the very grain and foundation of what this country stands for. He is violating the law and doing it with supreme contempt. Today it may be a poor and failing district but trust me they will attempt to do this statewide. I hope he is ready because there will be major repercussions from what this governor and mayor are doing. I truly hopes this opens the eyes of voters to the fact that both republicans and democrats in this state are corrupt to the core and will violate every law imaginable to enrich themselves and their friends.
I hate to see our Democratic governors be so actively involved the education "reform" movement.
When money and power get involved and education commissioners start asking newspapers not to write articles about them...then there are deeper problems than we see on the surface.
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