Christopher Cerf (school politician and businessman)

Christopher Cerf (born 1960) is an American education administrator who has served as the state-appointed Superintendent of the Newark Public Schools in New Jersey. Cerf has held high positions in government and has worked for several for-profit educational corporations, including Amplify, Global Education Advisers, Public Private Partnerships, Pink Hula Hoop, GEMS Education, and Sangari Global. Cerf also was the president of Edison Schools, which was "one of the world’s largest operators of public schools for profit." He was appointed New Jersey State Commissioner of Education by Chris Christie in 2010.

Cerf announced in December 2017 that he would leave office as superintendent in Newark on February 1, 2018, the same day when local control will be returned to the district. after 22 years of state control.

Cerf influenced directly Newark Public Schools (NPS) first as the State Superintendent of New Jersey and then as the state-imposed Superintendent of Newark Public Schools. Dale Russakoff, who studied education in Newark, wrote, "Christie had named Cerf his education commissioner, in charge of reforms across the state, and in particular in the Newark Public Schools, which he now would control on the governor’s behalf." Cerf described how he was in direct control of Newark Public Schools while he was the State Commissioner, "Essentially as a state-operated district, it had a direct line of report to me." In an interview, Russakoff stated, "Cerf basically brought the same ideas that Joel Klein had used in New York...and he was in very many ways the architect of what happened in Newark and... followed Joel Klein’s model."

Cerf was involved in two contentious issues connected to Newark: local control and the neoliberal set of reforms associated with charter schools, variously named One Newark and Universal Enrollment. Cerf was chosen as state-superintendent of NPS against the desires of some on the N.J. Board of Education and some Newark residents. Some have argued that Newark residents, like those of most districts in New Jersey, should choose their superintendent through democratic elections. Cerf is not a resident of Newark and lives in nearby Montclair, a site of a "large number of high-profile backers of a national reform movement."

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