Tony Bennett's Chewytrain Lands in Camden

by Doug Martin

One of the most embarrassing moments of Tony Bennett’s rein as Indiana’s corporate school chief (and there were many) was when his partner Dale Chu (better known as @chewytrain), happy as a teenage girl at a Jonas Brothers' concert (one of the Jonas Brothers, by the way, loves to perform at for-profit school Rocketship events), tweeted his admiration of the filthy rich out to privatize education at a Jeb Bush/Rupert Murdoch shindig in San Francisco.

The Ivy Leaguer and former charter school principal who resigned with Bennett in Florida after it was revealed that Bennett changed the grade of a donor’s charter school in Indiana, Chu is at it again, this time in Camden, New Jersey, where the corporate school takeover has been in full swing, as Jersey Jazzman has detailed, since Chris Christie, a former Edison Schools lobbyist, and Chris Cerf, Tony Bennett’s con man at Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, has made it an agenda.

In fact, there is a possible investigation brewing in nearby Newark, thanks to Christie and Cory Booker, the former corporate Democratic mayor and waterboy for Walmart and the Bradley Foundation's Black Alliance for Educational Options.  

Chu is now pulling in $160,000 ($10,000 more than he made in Florida) as the project director of the Camden City Schools  (page 83 in PDF box) where he’s doing “teacher talks” this month because, according to Chu, only three high school students in the entire city of Camden are college-ready. 

So that Jeb Bush would know about this Camden student "failure," Chu tagged him in one of his tweets.  As I recently mentioned to the good folks in Clay County Indiana, Jeb Bush was really the Indiana supt. of education when Chu was here, inviting friends at Charter Schools USA and Edison Learning to take over so-called "failing" schools and lobbying for online learning outfits like Pearson’s Connections Academy which invaded a community-led rural charter school to rake in millions.

As Rutgers professor Stephen Danley has pointed out, Camden "parents and residents must choose between crumbling district schools and shiny charter schools" in "a manufactured crisis caused by the refusal to fund repairs of district buildings."

Chu must be happy.  The powers-that-be in the Christie/Jeb Bush clan have at least opened up the bridge for Chewytrain to come, cash in, and weep in admiration of the 1 percent again.

Mark Weber on the Destructive NJ Ed Commish, Chris Cerf (Broad Academy '04)

from NJ Spotlight: 

The state education chief’s so-called reforms may have stirred up something more powerful than frustration and resignation

Chris Cerf says he’s not leaving his post as New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education because of Bridgegate, and I believe him. When Cerf departs at the end of March, he’ll be continuing a pattern of sliding back and forth between the private and public sector that he’s engaged in over his entire career.

Leaving for Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify -- or some similar corporate education outfit -- was the next, inevitable step for Cerf, no matter how many scandals may dog Gov. Chris Christie.

In many ways, Cerf is the prototypical education “reformer”: he never taught in a public school, never earned a degree in education, and never ran a school building. More accurately, perhaps, Cerf is the prototype of a new sort of reformer, one who leaves a groundswell of resistance in his wake.

After a few years of teaching at a private school, Cerf pursued a law career, eventually working in the Clinton administration. He shifted over to education not as a practitioner, but as the president of Edison Learning, the ill-fated school management company that never lived up to its promises in Philadelphia and elsewhere. That was followed by a stint in the vast and complex New York City schools, serving as deputy chancellor under his colleague in the Clinton White House, Joel Klein. who he will report to once again at Amplify.

An important part of Cerf’s training was his attendance at the Broad Superintendents Academy, an unaccredited project of California billionaire Eli Broad. The Academy is famous in education policy circles for recruiting potential education leaders -- many of whom, like Cerf, have minimal experience actually teaching in or running schools -- and indoctrinating them in the techniques of “creative disruption,” a style of governance that owes much to the cult of the CEO found today in American business.

Broad has proved to be an invaluable ally for Cerf during his tenure in New Jersey: his foundation provided money to create plans for the restructuring of the Newarkand Camden school districts (with minimal community input), and to start theRegional Achievement Centers (RACs) that Cerf has tasked with carrying out his policies in the local school districts.

But what, besides bringing Broad’s philosophy and money to New Jersey, is the legacy of Chris Cerf’s three years running the state’s schools? What does he leave behind for the next commissioner, and for those of us who actually do the daily job of teaching New Jersey’s children?

From this teacher’s perspective, Cerf has influenced what is one of the nation’s best state public education systems in ways that are both profound and disturbing:

The test is now everything Test scores determine whether a school closes in Newark. Test scores determine whether a school gets a “Priority,” “Focus,” or “Reward” rating from NJDOE. Test scores, as filtered through Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs), will play a critical role in determining whether a teacher of a tested subject keeps her job. Test scores determine whether a school outperforms its “peers” in the new performance reports.

And yet, so far as I know, New Jersey has never conducted an independent study to determine the validity or reliability of the NJASK, HSPA, or PARCC tests that are coming. And we know that student poverty is heavily correlated to proficiency rates, which raises the question: what, exactly, are we testing?

Urban school districts are being deconstructed Newark’s state-run district is closing schools without the consent of its elected School Advisory Board and turning over facilities to charter school operators.

Camden, another state-run district, has invited in charter operators from out of state; the Pennsylvania Auditor General, speaking of one of these operator’s charter school in Chester, PA, said: “this well-funded charter school seems to disregard even basic school operational requirements." Paterson’s teachers remain without a contract for a fourth year, while charters there continue to expand.

Under Cerf, the large, urban, autonomous, public school district has been gradually replaced by a portfolio system of school “choice.” It’s quite telling that this is not happening in the suburbs, home of Chris Christie’s political base – at least, not yet.

New Jersey’s commitment to equity has been shattered According to a new report released by the Education Law Center, New Jersey’s school districts are backsliding to an era of funding inequity. The School Finance Reform Act, successor to the Abbott laws and supposed guarantor of funding equity, remains underfunded. New Jersey is increasingly become a two-tiered school system, where wealthier districts largely finance themselves while poorer districts, without an adequate tax base to meet their school needs, go begging.

Leadership has been redefined, and not for the better Cerf and Christie brought Cami Anderson in to lead Newark’s schools; similar to Cerf, her school-level experience is limited to two years of teaching, followed by stints at private education organizations (like Teach For America) and the NYCDOE bureaucracy. Since her arrival in New Jersey, she’s managed to alienate the elected Schools Advisory Board, the city council, the teachers union , and many vocal and angry parents and students.

Janine Caffrey, also from the NYCDOE prior to taking over as superintendent in Perth Amboy, was recently fired by her school board, despite multiple intercessions from Cerf to try to save her from losing her job.

Tim Capone, one of Cerf’s recruits to his RACs before leading the schools in Highland Park, is facing strong community resistance after dismissing the president of the local teachers union.

Cerf brought Penny MacCormack to the NJDOE from Connecticut; she left to run the Montclair schools, but has faced a growing chorus of opposition to her plans to expand standardized testing.

And another product of the NYCDOE bureaucracy, Paymon Rouhanifard, has taken over the Camden schools, newly under control of the state. America’s most dangerous city’s schools superintendent is a 32-year-old who has a total of six years in education on his resume, most having little to do with teaching, curriculum, or teacher supervision. Experience, it seems, is no longer a prerequisite to take on the toughest school leadership jobs in a post-Cerf New Jersey.

Segregated and apartheid schools are now a defining feature of New Jersey Ascathing report from the Institute on Education Law and Policy at Rutgers-Newark finds that many of New Jersey’s schools have moved beyond “segregated” status. They are, in effect, apartheid schools, where children of color have little or no interaction with white students. This intense segregation extends to poverty status as well.

Local control of schools has been eroded State control has come to Camden, and,despite a few feints from Cerf, it looks as if it is firmly entrenched in Paterson and Jersey City.

Newark has actually moved further away from local governance, with an appellate judge upholding state control last summer. State monitors continue to exert power in several other districts: in Asbury Park, the local school board had its choice for a new superintendent rejected by the state’s fiscal monitor (who also just happened to be an applicant who was rejected for the interim job).

But it’s more than just direct state control: all local districts must move to the computerized PARCC standardized tests, but the state has not helped with the cost of implementing them. And the state has imposed a new teacher evaluation system, but has not helped with the costs for implementing that, or providing professional development.

Teachers are burned out In the words of a spokesman of the NJEA, the state’s largest teachers union, teachers are feeling “terrorized” by the new, state-mandated teacher evaluation system, AchieveNJ. Teachers are writing Student Growth Objectives with little guidance from the state and little evidence that they will improve student performance in untested areas. Teachers are wondering how they could possibly be responsible for the Student Growth Percentile scores when even Damien Betebenner, the “father” of SGPs, let slip once that the scores can’t be attributed to teachers.

Check out the Facebook posts of teachers or their tweets, and you’ll read many comments by professionals who still love their jobs -- and have no problem with being held accountable for their performance -- but are disgruntled, dispirited, and burned out. The joy of teaching is being sucked out of them, all in the name of “creative disruption.”

There is, however, resistance. The NJEA has found its voice as of late under new president Wendell Steinhauer, and is no longer simply accepting the current situation. For that matter, parent groups like SOSNJ and Montclair Cares about Schools are questioning Cerf’s policies. The Newark Students Union has challenged the state-run district to step up and meet their needs, as has the Newark Teachers Union. From the cities to the suburbs, parents, teachers, and students are no longer accepting the education policies of the past three years.

Ironically, this may be the ultimate legacy of Chris Cerf: his “reforms” have generated so much resistance that an organized and vocal opposition to the interests he has aligned himself with has taken shape. As Cerf retreats back to the private sector, his successor will have to deal with antagonists who are no longer willing to accept the status quo of “reform.”

And as Chris Christie’s troubles grow, their political power increases. Chris Cerf’s tenure may not have been the beginning of corporate reform in New Jersey; it may well have been the beginning of the end.

Mark Weber is a public school music teacher in Warren Township; a doctoral student at Rutgers University in Education Theory, Organization, and Policy; an NJEA member; and a New Jersey public school parent. He blogs at Jersey Jazzman His opinions are his own and are not necessarily those of his employers, Rutgers, the NJEA, or NJ Spotlight.

New Jersey Education Reforms: Reckless and Irresponsible, or Just Illogical?

Following the State of the Schools Address last week by Ed Commish Chris Cerf, another of Jeb Bush's Chiefs of Change, Bruce Baker took time to elegantly eviscerate the State's misleading and disingenuous analysis, particularly in relation to low-scoring, high-poverty schools (priority schools).  Below is a small clip from Baker's takedown, which describes the connections among race, class, and test performance, which the Cerf plan for corporate charter school privatization ignores.  Do read the entire post, for it is relevant to every state where public education is being displaced by corporate-run schools funded with public dollars.

From Bruce Baker's blog, School Finance 101:

. . . .Most notable, as I show below, priority schools have about 80% of children qualified for free lunch and reward schools less than 10%! Yet as the NJDOE slide above shows, at the high end these school districts spend slightly under 30% more than state average. Notably, this shoddy comparison does not compare these districts to others in their own labor market.

Indeed, New Jersey more than other states has put some money into these districts. See “Is school funding fair?” But, let’s be clear, these margins of funding difference, while helpful, hardly make these districts – given their needs – flush with excess resources!

In fact, the strongest empirical research on this topic suggests that it would take an additional 100% or so per pupil funding for a district that is 100% low income versus a district that is 0% low income. Here, we are looking at nearly that extreme of low income differential, and not nearly that extreme of funding support! So while these districts are better off than similar districts in other states, implying that they’ve got more than enough to close achievement gaps is a huge stretch.

But do those demographic differences matter?

This figure shows just how much the demographic differences represented above matter with respect to student achievement, and specifically how much school demography continues to dictate the performance classification of schools under the NJDOE waiver plan.

As I pointed out on a recent post, NJDOE has basically flagged schools in low income neighborhoods for experimentation and substantial disruption (closure, etc.) with an option to override any/all local input.

Notably, this pattern is likely better than it would otherwise be because of New Jersey’s past efforts to target additional resources to high need settings, including pre-kindergarten programs, smaller class sizes and more competitive teacher salaries than might otherwise exist in these settings.

New Jersey's big fat corporate ed reform liars

Al denounced the idea of charters when it became clear that the concept had changed and was being hijacked by corporate and business interests. In Al’s view, such hijacking would result in the privatization of public education and, ultimately, its destruction — all without improving student outcomes. — Edith Shanker

It all started a few days ago when Edison scoundrel and Broadyte Chris Cerf published a fact-free diatribe extolling a charter school solution to a non-existant problem. To say that Cerf plays fast and loose with facts would be the understatement of the summer, but his most mendacious statements (and a grievous factual error) occur in regards to the venerable Albert Shanker.

The incorrigible Cerf isn't the first corporate snake oil salesman to try and misrepresent the late President of the American Federation of Teachers' views, or for that matter, spin the original purpose of charters to be a gateway drug to vouchers. The latter argument is usual spun as "charter schools were created to be schools of choice." Anyone familiar with actual history knows that Shanker intended charters to supplement public schools by serving the most difficult to educate students (the ones current charters avoid like the plague), he never supported the core segregationist tenet of "school choice." Most high profile corporate education privatizers have perpetuated these outrageous lies at one time or another.

In What Chris Cerf Needs to Know About Albert Shanker the distinguished Professor Diane Ravitch took Cerf to task on his 896 word deception. Notably, the first thing she has to do is correct Cerf on Shanker's union affiliation. It speaks volumes that the bumbling Cerf, endeavoring to enlist an authoritative source, can't even get his source's association right. Ravitch literally schools Cerf across the board on Shanker's vision, intentions, and motivations for charters, and reiterated his staunch opposition to privatization and union busting. Since Ravitch knew Shanker, her recitation of historical facts is further bolstered by an understanding of the person being discussed.

Interestingly, at the end of her piece Ravitch outlines a set of ideas that would bring charter schools back in alignment with their original intent before they became a lucrative path to ever more privatization. Her list reads like a social justice manifesto, which, if implemented, would send the current charter camp scurrying onto the next bubble. Imagine Eva Moskowitz, Steve Barr, or Geoffrey Canada actually taking suggestions like this to heart?

...insist that all charters recruit and enroll only the lowest-performing students, the students who have dropped out, and the students who are doing poorly in their present public school. Ravitch

One would think that the profiteers and poverty pimps in the corporate education reform camp would have slithered back under their stones after being excoriated so effectively. Instead, Ravitch's speaking truth to corporate power brought out an even more deceitful and duplicitous individual than Cerf. Enter Laura Waters, an arch-reactionary with a doctoral degree in corporate servitude, or something to that effect. Waters, whose zeal for school privatization and segregation exceeds that of even Ben Austin or Michelle Rhee, cobbles together screeds littered with neoliberal gems like:

Free market competition is the best way to ensure that kids have real school choices

A survey of Water's corporate education reform essays reads like a John Birch Society education wish-list, with right-wing schemes of competition, choice, privatization, high stakes testing, and "merit" pay at the fore. Sadly, this reactionary repugnant is a School Board President.

Waters had the unmitigated gall to attack Professor Ravitch on her piece critical of Cerf. Despite having never met Shanker (unlike Ravitch), Waters decides that she can best speak for him. She then claims he'd be a corporate reformer pushing for segregationist ideas like school choice. The widely respected blogger Jersey Jazzman (aka Duke) exposed Waters' absurd ramblings to reality based community, and puts the reformers' misconceptions in perspective:

I guess maybe Laura has a ouija board now with which she communes with Shanker to get his answers

The rest of the Jazzman's post further dismantles Waters' tirade, including her patently false assertion that charters in New Jersey cannot be run by private entities. Ravitch wrote a short response on the Waters' fiasco, but it was the Darcie Cimarusti's response to Waters' arrogance that reminded us of another big fat liar — Rupert Murdoch's lapdog, Joel Klein. Like Cerf and Waters, Klein tried to claim Shanker as a corporate privatizer. Cimarusti (aka Mother Crusader) prompted rereading of a year old essay by Shanker's widow, Edith Shanker, entitled A Response To Joel Klein, in which all of these misattributions are cleared up.

A day later the Jazzman had even more evidence of Cerf, Klein, and Waters' perfidy. In that post he includes a brilliant comment by Jennie Shanker, daughter of the late unionist, that is profound beyond words:

your stance on this issue is diametrically opposed to his values and intent, and you are dead wrong to shame Diane Ravitch for her position. Indeed, if you consider your thinking to be in line with my father's, I recommend that you champion her work, as my family does. If anyone can speak for my father in this day and age, the person who should be most trusted is Dr. Ravitch. It's unfortunate that many people who read your article will not see this comment. I would like to respectfully request that you reconsider further publicizing your characterization n of my father's position on this topic. From what is in evidence in this article, despite your love for the man, you are in no position to speak for him.

I feel it's very powerful that she names Professor Ravitch as the inheritor of Shanker's mantle. Moreover, these clashes with the corporate education reformers are extremely important, and not just empty exercises. We must point out every lie, false claim, miracle school, vested interest, and, yes, falsification of Shanker's ideals that the no-excuses crowd puts out there. Every time the corporate reformers get away with telling the public falsehoods, they are able to push us ever closer towards their goals of total privatization.

Lawbreaking and Open Corruption Sewer at NJ DOE

New Jersey state politics has long enjoyed a reputation for corruption, second only to Louisiana, perhaps.  Now it would seem that Chris Christie's henchmen like Acting Ed Commish, Chris Cerf, may be able to move Jersey into first place.

Cerf's open contempt for state laws governing education policy seems to be his strong suit, although a case could be made that his embedded linkages with the corporate school industry appear even more prominent.  Cerf's most recent acquisition of former EdisonLearning lawyer, Evo Popoff, makes a strong case for the latter, while Cerf's illegal attempts to alter NJ state charter law would favor the former.

A wrap-up of the most recent news on the Jersey Cerfdom.  HT to Stan Karp:

Audience to N.J. Board of Ed: Proposed charter school regulations a mistake

Star Ledger

More than three dozen local school officials, parents, teachers and advocates packed a Trenton meeting room Wednesday to testify before the state Board of Education on proposed charter school regulations that would, among other things, make it easier for virtual charters to operate. The state board took no action Wednesday on the regulations, but it heard from speaker after speaker who said the rules would take control from local communities; violate existing charter school law; or destroy public schools.

ELC Testimony on proposed regulations

ELC cited explicit language in the current charter law, originally adopted in 1995, that puts strict limits on the ability of the Department to expand or modify the charter school program: “The commissioner may not implement any recommended expansion, modification, or termination of the [charter school] program until the Legislature acts on that recommendation." N.J.S.A. 18A:36A-16(e) [emphasis added] Despite this clear limitation, the Acting Commissioner’s proposed changes seek to expand and modify the existing charter school program in multiple ways. “In six areas – virtual charter schools, restructured renewal, satellite campus, amendment of charters, one year conditional renewal, and summary revocation – the Acting Commissioner's proposal represents a completely unauthorized expansion and/or substantial modification of the charter school program.”

Save Our Schools NJ petition opposing the proposed charter regulations.

Almost 3400 signatures and counting…

Opposition to Online Charters Heats Up State BOE Meeting

NJ Spotlight

The usually sleepy board meetings grew crowded by afternoon as advocates and those who signed up as “concerned citizens” filled two small hearing rooms to object to the charter regulation changes. Those testifying came mostly from suburbia, communities like Princeton, Westfield, South Brunswick and Cherry Hill, where the growth of charter schools under Christie have seen their stiffest resistance. Some said the new charter regulations were an outright threat to public education, contending among many complaints that they violate existing state law and could potentially cost local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. “The destabilizing impact of these measures cannot be overstated, and you can be very sure that the destabilization will be dramatic and immediate,” said Andrea Spalla, a member of the Princeton Regional Schools board of education.

NJ Spoltight also reported that the State Board approved the hiring of Evo Popoff as “Chief Innovation Officer.” Popoff is “a former senior vice president of Edison Learning, a for-profit education company where Cerf once worked. Popoff, who attended the meeting but wasn’t made available to reporters, has held a host of positions at Edison Learning, the New York-based corporation that was an early pioneer in private school management companies. Popoff, a lawyer, joined Edison in 2004, and his resume includes work with local districts in the company’s school improvement, extended learning and online programs…Starting this week, Popoff will earn $138,000, just shy of Cerf’s $141,200 salary, officials said.”

N.J. Board of Ed accepts more than $600K in donations from two private foundations

Star Ledger

With little discussion in public session, the state Board of Education today accepted donations totalling more than $600,000 from two private foundations. After the Newark-based Education Law Center wrote a letter to the board requesting that they defer accepting the funds, citing the "need for transparency, accountability and public confidence," the board asked the state Attorney General's Office if their objections had any merit, board members said. The matter was discussed in closed session, citing the "legal letter." But board member Ron Butcher said "in their (the AG's) mind, there are no issues.

Lying Governor Christie's Lying Nominee for Ed Commish Will Be Blocked

Let's hear a big round of applause for State Senator Ron Rice:

Sen. Ron Rice vows to block Christopher Cerf's confirmation as next N.J. education chief
Star Ledger 3/11/11

Trenton — State Sen. Ron Rice is no longer a potential problem on Chris Cerf’s road to becoming New Jersey’s next education commissioner.

He’s now an outright road block.

Rice (D-Essex) said he will invoke one of the Legislature’s oldest and most effective prerogatives by exercising senatorial courtesy, a maneuver that allows senators to block gubernatorial nominees who reside in their home districts or counties without giving reason for their disapproval.

Rice fired a warning last week when he said he would use the privilege against Cerf unless Cerf agreed to appear before the Joint Committee on the Public Schools, a legislative panel that Rice chairs and includes state senators and assemblymen.

Rice said then that Cerf, whom Gov. Chris Christie named acting education commissioner in December, misled him about his relationship with Newark Mayor Cory Booker. The mayor has said Cerf served as an informal adviser to him.

According to Rice, Cerf said he did not know Booker when obviously he does. Rice is concerned Cerf has already advised Booker on several controversial issues such as vouchers and charter schools.

Rice now says he is invoking his senatorial privilege no matter what Cerf does.

"Acting Commissioner Cerf prevaricates. He doesn’t tell all truths," Rice said. "He may be here now, but he can’t stay forever, and he will not be permanent at this point. The governor will have to find someone else." . . .

Christie's Data Thugs Cramming Down More Segregated Corporate Charter Schools

The ethically-challenged Chris Cerf is paddling hard to keep up with the dying wave of school privatization and union destruction that will be swept away as the public awakes to smell what has been cooked up by Wall Street and the Business Roundtable.  Without real data to support the continuing spread of the segregated corporate containment camps for child brainwashing, Cerf and Co. are simply cooking the books. 

Great summary here provided by Stan Karp on the latest from Christie's goons and stooges.

NJDOE Report on Charter Schools in New Jersey
http://www.state.nj.us/education/chartsch/research/interim.pdf
 
Fine Print: Charter Schools in New Jersey -- Interim Report
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/11/0307/2246/
NJ Spotlight 3/8/11
The debate over which is better -- charter or traditional -- has become almost political sport of late in New Jersey, with Gov. Chris Christie making a big push to expand charters, while others argue there is little appreciable difference when it comes to achievement.
 
Policy And Research: A Shotgun Wedding In New Jersey
http://shankerblog.org/?p=1646
3/7/11
Earlier today, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced his plan to open 23 new charter schools in his state.  Just hours before this announcement, the NJ education department issued an analysis of new data on the performance of charter schools in the state (during the 2009-10 school year).   In an accompanying press release, the department claims that “the data affirms [sic] the need for Governor Christie’s reform proposals to grow the number of high-quality charter schools…”

The release also contains several other extremely bold assertions that the results support expanding the state’s charter sector.  The title of the actual report, which contains only tables, is: “Living Up to Expectations: Charter Schools in New Jersey Outperforming District Schools.”

Unfortunately, however, the analysis could barely pass muster if submitted by a student in one of the state’s high school math classes (charter or regular public

Fact-checking Gov. Christie's favorite budget boasts
Associated Press, Star Ledger, 3/5/11
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/fact-checking_gov_christies_fa.html
Gov. Chris Christie likes to use numbers — a lot of them — to explain to people the enormity of the state's fiscal crisis. But like with many things, context can change the meaning.
Here's a fact check of some of Christie's favorite figures.