New Jersey's answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking the first steps toward enriching his friends and benefactors by privatizing public schools:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced a pilot program on Thursday that would allow private companies to run public schools in some of the state's chronically underperforming school districts. The public-private partnership would authorize school management organizations to operate five schools, and would target some of the 100,000 New Jersey students now enrolled in 200 chronically failing schools, the governor's office said. The state's teachers union, which has clashed with the Republican governor over cuts to school aid and other issues, said the plan was part of Christie's "ongoing effort to privatize public education in New Jersey." [...] Christie has appointed as his acting education commissioner Christopher Cerf, the former president of Edison Schools Inc., the country's largest private-sector manager of public schools. The company is now called EdisonLearning.

Oh yeah, Christopher Cerf! Look at the chart at the top of this post and see if you can follow with this post from Blue Jersey:

Billionaire Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, which promotes both a "corporate education reform" agenda and politicians like Governor Chris Christie to carry that agenda out. Murdoch recently hired Joel Klein, former NYC Schools Chancellor and toady to billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to run Wireless Generation, Murdoch's venture into the education business. Klein is the former boss of Christopher Cerf, currently Acting Commissioner of Education under Chris Christie. Cerf's last edu-business venture before accepting the position was as founder of Global Education Advisors, which "consulted" with the Newark schools on a plan to vastly increase the numbers of charter schools in the city. The $500,000 for the report came from the Broad Foundation, funded by billionaire Eli Broad. The foundation also funded Cerf's training as an education administrator.

Yes, for some odd reason, Cory Booker, Newark's mayor, refused to disclose who funded the study.