Christopher D. Cerf (born c. 1954)[1] is an American education administrator and attorney who previously served as the state-appointed Superintendent of the Newark Public Schools in New Jersey.
[2][3][4] Cerf was born in Illinois but grew up in Washington, D.C.[5] Around 1970, he and his family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, where he attended Commonwealth School.
[5] After his clerkships, Cerf worked as a lawyer in two law firms in Washington, D.C.,[6] a period in which he returned to the Supreme Court to argue two cases, one of which he won.
[6][8] In early 2006, Cerf began working as a consultant to the New York City Department of Education with a salary funded by private donations.
[8] When appointed deputy chancellor, Cerf had disclosed to city officials that he had retained stock options from his time at Edison Schools and therefore would recuse himself from any decisions involving the company.
Edison Schools had planned to make a $60,000 donation to Darrow Foundation, a non-profit wilderness and canoeing youth program in Maine.
[7][20] In September 2009, Cerf left his post as deputy chancellor to join Mayor Bloomberg's re-election campaign as an education policy adviser.
[25][26][27] In June 2015, Cerf stepped down from his executive post at Amplify in anticipation of his appointment to head the Newark City School District.
[31] Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Cerf were able to end the pugnacious relationship between the city's leaders and state's Department of Education.