Chris Cerf Leaving As New Jersey Education Commissioner

Probably got nothing to do with BridgeGate, but another member of the Christie crew is slinking out:

New Jersey Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf, who pushed for charter schools to give parents more choices and helped draft a landmark tenure law with the state’s powerful teachers union, is stepping down at the end of this month, according to a report in The Record.

The newspaper is reporting that Cerf, 59, will leave Feb. 28 to take a job with an education technology firm run by former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, Cerf’s onetime boss.

Cerf will become chief executive officer of Amplify Insight, a division of Amplify, the newspaper reported.

Cerf, education commissioner for just over three years, brokered a 2012 law that ties tenure to classroom observations and student test results.

“That was the classic sitting in a windowless room for days on end negotiating,” he said of the behind-the-scenes work to make the agreement a reality.

Cerf became New Jersey’s top education official in December 2010 after Gov. Chris Christie fired Bret Schundler over a disqualified “Race to the Top” application that cost New Jersey up to $400 million in federal school aid.

And of course Cerf goes off to cash in.

This might be a good time to remember that the last NJ Ed Commissioner told us that Christie was basically liar when Christie blamed him and fired him over the RttT flap.