CURMUDGUCATION: Chris Cerf: Who, Us?

CURMUDGUCATION: Chris Cerf: Who, Us?

Chris Cerf: Who, Us?

After Robin Lake decided to reject the "reformy" mantle, Chris Perf has decided to add his two cents, but I'm not sure that his two cents is not overpriced.

Cerf came up in the Klein-Bloomberrg overhaul of NYC pubic schools, by virtue of having taught at a private school for a year, then working as a lawyer in Joel Klein's law firm. The arrangement was a curious one-- his salary was paid not by the city, but by private donors. From there he went on to run New Jersey's department of education (thanks Chris Chistie); he also spent some time as a lobbyist for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. He left New Jersey to join Amplifyunder his old boss, Klein. After fleeing that disaster, he resurfaced as Superintendent of Newark Schools. He appears to be between gigs at the moment, but like most reformsters, Perf has a network for falling upward.

Short form: Cerf is certainly familiar withe the reformy world.

His brief essay at The 74 has just a few points to make, and all of them are either disingenuous or deliberately misleading.

In a curious linguistic twist, over the past decade, opponents of transformational change have co-opted the word “reform” and essentially converted it into a malediction.

"Gosh, you guys. I have no idea how the term "reform" collected bad connotations. Our evil opponents must have done it!"

Nope. Reformsters grabbed the term and held on tight because it had the power to immediately frame ed reform as a bunch of white hat heroes coming to rescue education from the Powers of Badness as typified by teachers, unions, regulations, etc. Those of us in the defense of public ed camp worked hard not to let them have the word-- hence the use of words like reformster, rephormes, privatizers, colonizers, GERM, etc-- but CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Chris Cerf: Who, Us?