Showing posts with label Chris Cerf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Cerf. Show all posts

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Newark Schools for Sale: Cami Anderson, Cerf Keep Turnaround Board Member Campbell Brown Under the Sheets

Turnaround has refused to provide information about its failed foray into Orange schools. Now, Turnaround For Children is interviewing schools in Newark for September. What is Turnaround and what is its proposed role in Newark? The best source for information would be Turnaround, right? Wrong. ...Newark Schools for Sale
Ted Cohen sent this follow-up report after his last post here (Newark Confidential - Turnaround Children Inc. Tr...) on secrecy laden Turnaround Schools move into the Newark schools as a "reward" for failing. Slimebucket Campbell Brown is on their board.

He posted at http://newarkschoolsforsale.wordpress.com/

Turnaround Children, Campbell Brown: kissin’ cousins?

Image

By Ted Cohen

The top school official in a major American city as part of an education-reform initiative is bringing in yet another nonprofit foundation, yet as little is known about Turnaround for Children Inc. as is known about how it fits into Supt. Cami Anderson’s plan to modernize Newark, New Jersey’s schools.

Anderson refuses to respond to open requests for information, and Turnaround officials  - where the secretive ex-newsie Campbell Brown sleeps on the board (http://gawker.com/5936190/campbell-brown-is-incapable-of-understanding-the-concept-of-disclosure) – are equally evasive.

Brown’s lackings also caught the sharp eye of Karoli Kuns. (http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/campbell-brown-crawls-out-under-her-rock-sl)

Attempts to contact New Jersey Education Commissioner Chris Cerf have been met with similar silence.

As a longtime newspaper reporter, I find transparency hard to come by. Nonprofits should make transparency their middle name.

In fact, Guidestar.org is helping promote transparency, announcing recently its intent to “encourage nonprofit transparency on a national scale.”

A bit of history: Anderson arrived in New Jersey’s largest school district  in 2011. She brought with her an education-reform movement. The city’s public schools are among the lowest-performing in the state, even after the state government took over their management in 1995.

Although the school district continues to struggle with low high school-graduation rates and low standardized-test scores, the mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, insists, “Newark, New Jersey can become one of the first American cities to solve the crisis in public education.”This vision for better school district is also shared by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who made a $100 million donation to Newark Public Schools in 2010.

HuffPost’s Joy Resmovits called Newark  “a national test case for the fixing of troubled urban schools and the use of major philanthropic dollars in an educational system.”

Now, Turnaround For Children is interviewing schools in Newark for September. What is Turnaround and what is its proposed role in Newark? The best source for information would be Turnaround, right?

Wrong.

Turnaround has refused to provide information about its failed foray into Orange schools and whether that experience foretells problems in Newark. That’s not the way to run a nonprofit. Obfuscation begets journalistic cynicism – and scrutiny.

Turnaround’s entry into the reform movement began with Orange, N.J., as well as New York City and Washington, D.C. But as soon as the Orange effort began, it failed, according to Turnaround’s nonprofit filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

Tax documents filed with the IRS by Turnaround – accessible through Guidestar.org – disclose the program’s unexpected suspension. The documents, a public record, also reveal that Turnaround was forced to return the remaining part of the grant that funded the program.

“Management decided to terminate its three-school program earlier than planned,” Turnaround officials told the IRS. In their IRS filing, Turnaround officials blamed the short-lived program’s demise on what they vaguely described as a “shift in organizational priorities.”

But officials failed to disclose what they meant by the change or who instigated it.

Turnaround officials say they suspended their request for the remaining funding they were to receive for the Orange project, but they made no mention of the amount of funding they had already received and the amount they were still due.

Turnaround officials issued a prepared statement defending their Orange pullout. “Our hope was to expand the partnership, to deliver a significant amount of professional development to teachers and to increase our engagement district-wide,” said Kate Felsen, vice president of communications. “Unfortunately, Orange Public Schools did not have the capacity to take on the professional development we had to offer during the 2011-12 year. For this reason, we ended our partnership amicably.”

Though Turnaround proudly announced the Orange project in its September 2010 newsletter, there is no evidence on the organization’s web site that Turnaround officials ever notified the public of the program’s suspension.
If Orange school officials are to blame for Turnaround’s failure in their schools, then they are apparently taking the accusations in stride. Orange Supt. Ronald Lee refused to respond to questions. He submitted a statement finally after receiving a formal open-records request.

He said, “Turnaround proposed to expand its program to a transformational model that encompassed academic, foundational and behavioral elements in the 2011-2012 school year. At the same time, the district was continuing or launching a number of significant initiatives to improve instruction and student outcomes. We mutually concluded that the district’s initiatives would require and deserved the full focus of the district staff, principals and teachers. Therefore, we discontinued the program in Orange at that time to allow these innovations to take hold.”

Felsen, too, will not go beyond her prepared statement. When asked who funded the Orange effort and who will be funding the Newark plan, Felsen replied, “You have my statement.”

More to the point, attempts by journalists to procure information from this so-called “transparent” group – as described by GuideStar.org – have been met with silence, stalling and arrogance.

To garner and cultivate pubic support, i.e., more dollars, nonprofits need to be open, accessible. Not hiding. What language do they understand – “lawsuit?”

Ted Cohen of Maine is a veteran newspaper and radio reporter who follows trending national issues. He can be reached at tedcohen@hotmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Tedcohen1.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Christopher Cerf: The Perfect Face of Ed Deform... and a Crook Too

Cerf/Broad/Duncan extortion racket in New Jersey

There was a twitter debate initiated by Ken Libby about civility in the rhetoric on both sides of the ed wars where he raised the question as to whether our side can also be too vicious. Read below and tell me how we can't be vicious enough.

Broad Infestation at the NJDOE

Jim Horn posts a stunning letter he received from a former employee at the New Jersey Department of Education. The letter is anonymous for obvious reasons. Take that for what it's worth, but keep in mind Jim's blog, Schools Matter, is an excellent resource with a solid track record. I'm inclined to take this at fact value:
Below is an email I received from a former NJ DOE employee whose moral fatigue forced her from a good paying job with the State. Read it and then you will know why the Eli Broad calls his kind of philanthropy investments rather than grants.
_______________________ 
I am a former NJ DOE employee who resigned recently because I could no longer be a part of the extortion and fraud that is taking part there under the Broad Administration of Chris Cerf, Penny MacCormack, Peter Shulman, Bing Howell, ad nauseum.
From Jersey Jazzman blog.

You really have to read both Schools Matter and Jersey Jazzman to get the full picture of these crooks. We have written often about now Jersey State Ed Commissioner Cerf appointed by that other crook Christie. See below for links to our posts for the full Cerf Sleaze story. This just came in from Leonie Haimson about how Cerf tried to get rid of real educators but when he couldn't he just created a new costly class above them.

A perfect analogy: Cerf head on Bloomberg body

Cerf's latest power grab

Cerf tried to illegally replace NJ supes (real educators) but when court stopped him as it did with Joel Klein, he appts new positions above them (remember regional supervisors?) made up of broadies (Eli Broad Academy grads -- the national equivalent of the Leadership Academy but for Supts.) And using title 1 funds besides. All facilitated of course by Duncan and his minions in the name of Ed reform.

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/06/broad-infestation-at-njdoe.html?spref=tw&m=1

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Ed Notes

Dec 18, 2010
Just to keep in perspective what education "reform" means to these fellows--and to the media, Christopher Cerf, former President of Edison, the commercial outfit that has stirred up bitter controversy in 25 states, was hired in ...
Feb 07, 2007
Though Cerf insisted he had no financial interest in the company, it turns out that he just sold his Edison stock yesterday – when he saw that the CPAC agenda listed him as speaking about privatization and Edison.
Feb 09, 2007
In a photo I took at the press conference, it appears as if Christopher Cerf, one of Klein's newest appointees, might have been napping, or as the caption says on my blog, “Christopher Cerf dreams of ways to turn the NYC ...
Dec 06, 2008
Check out Juan Gonzalez' column in today's NY Daily News about the long-suppressed report from the Special Commissioner of Investigation on Chris Cerf, the Deputy Chancellor, as well as the NY Times story here.

Feb 11, 2007
I'm using this space to post another incisive email on Cerf from Leonie Haimson. The question she raises about the way the press dropped the ball on Cerf is so relevant. Of cousre, I would add to this the silence of the UFT ...
Oct 21, 2008
"No excuses," proclaimed his able assistant Christopher Cerf when asked about the vast differences in the numbers between the poorer and wealthier areas of the city. "Teachers have to figure out ways to get these kids into ...
===============
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Friday, December 5, 2008

NYC Deputy Chancellor Cerf "Chided" About Soliciting Donation


Chided? That's it?
Would you buy a used car from Christopher Cerf?
A teacher would be hung.
Remember the librarian at Brooklyn Tech who was hounded for promoting his daughter's book?
Don't they have rubber rooms for deputy chancellors?
Five years ago I spoke at a PEP meeting and said one day the entire gang would be taken out of Tweed with their coats over their heads.

Mr. Cerf’s relationship with the company, now called EdisonLearning, first made headlines in February 2007, when he assured a citywide parents’ group that he had “zero” financial interest in Edison. He later acknowledged that he had relinquished his equity stake in the company only the day before.

“Raising money for a not for profit, tell me, what’s wrong with that?” he added.

Graphic by David

Interesting how the DOE imposes all kinds of crap on schools and teachers attempting to raise money.

The NY Times had to get the Condon report using Freedom of Information. Good for them.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

NYC DOE Monitors Blogs in Search for 'Truth'

Before we start, note that the UFT also has a similar "unofficial" squad - oppressive agencies with things to hide do this sort of thing.

"We try to keep track of what people are saying about us, and we respond periodically," a deputy schools chancellor, Christopher Cerf, who came up with the Truth Squad concept, said. "Because we believe in the truth."

Cerf must think he's going to replace George Carlin with this line.

The first time I met DEO press chief David Cantor occurred when I attended a Klein press conference at Tweed. Before being admitted, he took me aside and said, "What exactly is the story? I hear you have a blog." Meaning: how can you be an objective reporter?

What? People at this level are aware of a fairly minor blog like mine? I could see the Unity/UFT yokels being interested since the main object of ed notes is to reach rank & file teachers. But the DOE?

I responded that for the Wave I was both a reporter and a columnist and I was there in that capacity. And so what if I have a blog? I was admitted and since then Cantor has never been less than accomodating.

Leonie Haimson and the NYC Public School Parent listserve and blog appear to be a major target because of her dead-on analysis (did they follow her to Monday's Ed Notes gathering in Rockaway?) Ed Notes is probably not high enough on the list of the elite 24 blogs and listserves being monitored by the DOE press office but they do have one person monitoring Alexander Russo's This Week in Education which often links to Ed Notes. Russo has a fun post on the story today. As does Eduwonette.

Is this what Joel Klein meant when he said his people work 14 hour days?

Elizabeth Green in today's NY Sun:

Employees at the city Department of Education's press office have a new assignment: They are to scour a group of 24 education Web logs, e-mail Listservs, and Web sites in a hunt for factual errors and misinformation. Department officials are calling the unit the Truth Squad.

The squad's latest triumph should appear today on a Listserv operated by the parent organizer Leonie Haimson — in the form of an e-mail message arguing that Ms. Haimson's characterization of summer school programs as underfunded was incorrect.

Press officers have also posted responses in the form of comments to the blogs they read.

Link to the Sun article.


Tuesday, September 25, 2007

TAG NYC Crew Rock at the PEP...

....and Patrick Sullivan was pretty fine too with a resolution on military recruitment plus lots of good questions and comments for the Tweedles:

"Mr. Cerf. I'm from the corporate world, not education. But our human resources people take a good hard look at retention rates as a measure of effectiveness."

And I got it all on tape. Details later.