Cerf, who took over for embattled school chief Cami Anderson in July, is a former state education commissioner who helped craft the controversial "One Newark" universal enrollment plan
NEWARK - Since arriving in Newark in early July, Superintendent of Schools Chris Cerf has had no shortage of challenges.
In addition to chipping away at a budget deficit of more than $60 million and refining the city's recently implemented universal enrollment system after a bumpy start, he has attempted to calm a wave of frustration from many parents and officials over conditions in public schools.
Simultaneously, he has sought to downplay what he calls a "narrative of negativity" and unite Newark as it moves closer toward long-awaited local control of its education system.
On Monday, Cerf sat down with NJ Advance Media to discuss the state of the city's education system, clarify his past involvement with its controversial reforms and what its future may hold long after he is gone and schools have been returned to local control.
Following is a full transcript of the 30-minute interview.
What does Newark's education system look like when you're done?
Well there are a couple things I think we can say for sure. The first is that we will have returned the district to local control. That is a centerpiece of my commitment and of the work, and we are working closely with the Newark Education Success Board and with the community to craft a path towards that objective.
Here's essentially what I hope the system looks like when we pass it off. First of all I hope that we are all organized around the central objective of providing every child who lives in Newark with a free quality public education, and that all of our policy decision and all of the fiscal decisions are oriented around that objective. The second is that we rec the purpose of public education is to give every child an equal opportunity at success in life, and that we've leveled the playing field so that all schools have an equal opportunity to succeed.
The third is that we stop focusing as much as we have on some of the sort of political issues and continue to focus on the educational outcomes. I think that a big part of that is that we act the way our parents act, which is to say we want quality public school and how a school came into being, whether as a magnet school, or a traditional school or a charter public school or a county (vocational education) school is of secondary significance compared to the opportunity that all children have to choose a quality school.
When were you first approached about taking the job as superintendent?
It was actually very late in the game. I believe I began on or around July 1, 2015, so it was within a month before that.
Did you speak directly with the governor about that? Why do you think you were chosen?
Well I don't know why I was chosen, but I did speak with the governor about it. I mean this is a gubernatorial appointment so that would be in the ordinary course.
Did he have a specific charge for you?
It's probably best that I not go into private conversations with the governor, but I can tell you this. We were both very clear with each other that it was critical that this work be directed toward the return of local control.
So you were not party to the discussions between Mayor Baraka and the governor in terms of their agreement to return local control?
I was not.
You have a long history in education reform circles, in New York and elsewhere. There have been some accusations from some segments of the community that you're here as an agent to "charterize" the community. How do you respond to that?
Well it's completely false, and it is very important that that narrative be responded to fully and accurately. Just a couple of facts - I was deputy chancellor of New York City public schools and I believe there were about 1,500 traditional public schools and about 1 percent of that was charter schools - perhaps 2 or 3 percent - very small. In New Jersey, I was commissioner of education- there were about 2,500 traditional public schools and about 85 charter schools while I was commissioner. I had the power of life and death over charter schools and I closed 10 percent of the charter schools.
Lastly, I will say this - and it is nothing short of remarkable to me that there is not a broad understanding of this. I was not part of the picture in summer of 2010, when Mr. Zuckerberg and now Sen. Booker and the governor were discussing the possibility of a $100M gift. I was otherwise engaged. But when I became commissioner shortly after that, one of the first things I did was to fly down to WDC and meet in the private office of (American Federation of Teachers President ) Randi Weingarten. And I said to her "Randi it appears that we have a very substantial opportunity here. There's a large amount of philanthropic funds, they're very energized by charter schools. I want to make sure that most of that money goes into improving the traditional public school system, so here's what I think we ought to do together. Let us agree on a CBA that is the first of its kind in the nation. Let's pay our teachers more, let's pay them according to the degree to which they are effective educators, let's stop having steps and bumps based on whatever degree you got and based instead on the quality of the educational preparation you have. Let's agree in advance to expand learning time in the schools and on the terms of compensation that would be associated with that. If we do that, right, if you'll agree to that, then I will agree that this is not going to be New Orleans. We are going to have a modest expansion of alternative choices, to include charters, to include some new traditional public schools. But we're not going to quote 'charterize' the district." And that is exactly what happened.
If you look at the numbers and you go from that day forward we did get that collective bargaining agreement, and we have expanded the number of charters to then about 12.5 percent to about 28 percent. We also brought in a number of non-charter traditional public schools, Bard Early College being an example. Eagle Academy, Young Girls Academy and many more. So we've expanded the choices available to parents to include charters, but we have not quote 'charterized' the district, in fact that was never our intent.
Can you give a sense of during your time as commissioner, precisely what your role was in terms of the framework of One Newark, and the implementation of it?
I'm not going to use that term, because it is so misunderstood. But essentially as a state-operated district, it had a direct line to report to me. Now bear in mind that there were 560 districts in New Jersey. In addition to Newark there was Camden and Paterson and others. Most of my time and attention was not focused on Newark at all, it was focused on broader issues that affect the entire state.
That said, I was very much made aware of the particular plans and the progress, but gave a very sort of long level of sort of latitude, as I do in my general management style. But specifically, you're probably referring to universal enrollment. I do believe in the broad outlines of that. I do believe that giving parents choice to figure out what is best for their own children and then creating a system that helps to broaden that choice, is an absolutely valid and valuable point of view. I also believe that we should not allow schools to determine who gets to go to them or who gets to stay in them. That left to their own devices, some schools, traditional schools and charter schools, wouldn't potentially use that power. So I did believe and I do believe in the broad idea of taking central ownership of student enrollment, not leaving it to individual schools, and building everything on trying to prefer parents' choices. So I did know about that in advance, and I supported it.
Now I will also say, that the execution of those values, particularly in the first year, was problematic, meaning it was a very complex system, it was new and there were plenty of bumps and wrinkles. I will also say that it is worthy of revision and modification. For example, I personally think we should give a greater preference to neighborhood. I personally believe in giving what's called sibling preference, in giving priority to a family who already has a student in a particular school is a priority that we ought to create. But I also believe that essentially you need to have neutral tiebreakers. When you have more people that want a seat at a school then there are seats at the schools, you don't want to leave it to politics. You don't want it to be a transaction between powerful people. You want to have neutral rules that give everybody an equal preference.
You referenced problems with the execution of One Newark, do you think you bear any personal responsibility for that?
I bear accountability for 100 percent.
In what way?
Well, I'm the buck stops here guy.
You recently said the district has as many as 4,500 more students than in 2011, and it seems you have been discovering other things, such as expenses attributed to the central office that maybe should not have been accounted for that way. How are you figuring these things out? Were there problems with the way things were being accounted previously?
There were not problems, but it is remarkable to me how much we all have yet to learn about some of the fiscal issues, some of the organizational issues. So if there's one central theme about the work over the last four of five months, it is that everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own set of facts. What has happened here is that there are deeply held, strongly articulated narratives, by everybody - by proponents, by opponents - that in many cases have long since become disconnected with the underlying facts. So my commitment has been to actually figure out those facts and talk about them openly and transparently. That's what I believe we are doing. This budget process is a pretty good example of that.
You're a member of the Newark Educational Success Board. Can you give a sense of what the status of that is? What are you going to be working on going forward with that?
I can. This is a study group that has been assigned by both the mayor and the governor the responsibility of developing essentially a pathway to local control. We meet in public session as we're doing tonight and as we've done in the past but we also privately to talk with each other and learn and do research. What happens in those meetings is not a matter for public discussion. Its something we have all agreed to keep private. In general, we are working together, we are working collaboratively. We have the same goals and objectives. We are working collegiately. And we have already made real progress in talking about the pathway to get QSAC satisfied for example.
You've been critical of QSAC in the past. Do you believe this is a fair process?
I do believe that QSAC is the law, and it is a box we need to check on the way to local control, and we are working extremely hard to check that box. I don't believe the statute is particularly well conceived on a number of different fronts. I think it can be very compliance-oriented and checklist-oriented and not focused on what matters, which is are more students graduating from high school ready for success., whether through college or career. I also think any manager of any large enterprise would question the whole premise of saying you can separately look at program and instruction, and finances and personnel, and operations. They are so inextricably linked to each other, to say that you've checked a box in one but not the other, doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense to me.
How has your relationship with the School Advisory Board been? Do you feel you're on the same page?
That's a question best left for them. There are a number of members. I bet you you'd get different answer from different ones. I can tell you this, that from day one I have worked very hard to engage them and I've been very appreciative of the reception I've received. We've had productive conversations privately in committees and in public sessions. I offered to give them space in (Newark Public Schools headquarters), which they've taken. I refer to them publicly not as the school advisory board but as the school board, as a matter of respect and dignity. I feel that this is a relationship that is being built, but we're making big progress.
Can we go back to you wanting to get away from the name 'One Newark'? Can you explain why you feel that is no longer productive? Is it just a name change or are you actually proposing that changes be made to it?
I think a lot of people in this community stopped thinking at all about what those words actually meant and it became a brand and a target. What I can tell you is what I believe in, to the extent you want to put a label on it, you can put a label on it. So I'm telling you what I believe in is first, that the reason we go to work every day is to make sure that every child has access to a quality education, free quality public education. I believe in that. That means that we don't squabble to the degree we had been squabbling about how a school came into being, but we focus on great schools.
Secondly I believe that we dishonor our parents and our families when we tell them that we know better than they do about what is the right thing for their children. We should have an opportunity for parents to the maximum extent possible to choose the educational solution that they think is best for their child. Third, I believe in educational equity, at the broadest possible level, it is deeply wrong - it is immoral -that children's educational opportunity is determined by birth circumstances. Where they happened to live, whether their parents happened to be born in this country, the socioeconomic status of their family circumstances. We had a great promise in this country of equality, of opportunity, and we are not fulfilling that promise. For children at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, which disproportionately means children of color. I do fundamentally believe in that principle, so I believe that when there are people who are operating in opposition to that principle, we need to make sure that that principle is always dominating in our policy making. Those are the principles that are leading and those are the principles that characterize our future. Now you can put any label in the world on that, but I think that's where I'd like to keep our eye focused.
Ever since KIPP announced it was planning on expanding in Newark, there's been a bit of fervor from some people who think it could have a major impact on the public school system. Is that justified? What do you think the impact would be?
Well I think there has been a pretty substantial overreaction to that, and its probably based on legitimate concerns and some distrust, and some failures to effectively communicate. Going back to Dr. Bolden, the trajectory, the growth of charter school students has been kind of slow and steady. I actually said in a public forum, I believe at the (New Jersey Performing Arts Center), the majority of schools in Newark will always be traditional public schools. That is an outcome that is compelled by economics, politics, educational philosophy and the like. The number of charter schools and students in charter schools are going to stay within that constraint.
The KIPP schools for example, I am extremely confident that whether the state grants that application or doesn't, it will not make a difference of one student or one campus in Newark next year. If it makes a difference the following year it will be very, very, very small. First of all, people don't understand that the state makes charter decisions, not the school superintendent, so it's literally out of my hands. But I do know from having been commissioner, that there's a long way from granting a charter school application and a school actually opening, and there's lots of opportunities for visiting what would be the impact on the district, is the school actually ready to open, and the like. So I do think that there has been a pretty substantial overreaction if the measure is what are the practical consequences of the application.
How long do you think you're going to be in this role? Do you have a prediction?
I'm not going to offer a prediction. But I have said before that my job is defined by putting myself out of a job. That's something that the NESB and the community and the mayor ultimately the governor and the community are going to work out.
Dan Ivers may be reached at divers@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanIversNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.