School Official's Company Was Probed for Bad Business

The former general manager of a tutoring company that was investigated for improper business practices in its dealings with the city public schools now works for the Department of Education, as Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf's chief of staff.

Joel Rose ran Newton Learning, a subsidiary of the for-profit school management company Edison Schools Inc., which provides tutoring to students at failing schools. Newton Learning was investigated for offering incentives to students and schools to choose its services, soliciting students even after the education department warned it not to, and allowing its employees to interact with students before receiving fingerprint clearance.

Yesterday, Mr. Cerf, the deputy chancellor of external affairs and human capital, declined to answer questions about Mr. Rose after a speech in which he promoted the school system overhaul. Later, a department spokesman, David Cantor, said the investigation into Newton's business practices was minor and had not affected the department's decision to hire Mr. Rose.

"We feel very comfortable knowing his work," Mr. Cantor said.

Mr. Rose, who started his career as a teacher in the Teach For America program, managed Newton for three years, including the period of the investigation by the special commissioner of investigation for the school district, Richard Condon. In the report, the only action investigators recommended was that Newton be reminded of department policies.

Mr. Rose left before the report was issued to become a consultant for the Department of Education in January 2006; he was paid with private money from the Fund for Public Schools, a nonprofit organization chaired by Chancellor Joel Klein. As a consultant, he worked on the chancellor's latest plan to overhaul the school bureaucracy.

He was hired at the Department of Education at the beginning of the year, about a week after Mr. Cerf, the former president of Edison Schools. His responsibilities include managing the $125 million central budget and restructuring the Division of Human Resources as a part of the bureaucracy overhaul.

Mr. Cantor said Mr. Rose has no financial interest in Edison. Last week, when parents and reporters questioned him about it, Mr. Cerf initially would not say when he had given up his Edison stock options. A Times article disclosed that he had done so the day before he expected to be questioned.

Mr. Cantor said no former Edison Schools employees currently work in the upper echelons of the department bureaucracy other than Messrs. Rose and Cerf. The department also has said it does not believe their previous links to Edison would be a conflict of interest.