When a self-confident person holding a senior position of responsibility admits to making a mistake in front of reporters, we can state with certainty that we are witnesses to a rare event. The meeting between NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and correspondents from New York’s ethnic and community papers was just such an extraordinary event. The meeting was organized by New York Community Media Alliance. On the very same day, journalists from immigrant newspapers were able to meet with vice-president of the teacher’s union Leo Casey, whose opinions on school reform are diametrically opposed to Joel Klein’s position.
Joel Klein considers one of the main achievements of Michael Bloomberg’s administration to be mayoral control over the city school system. Previous mayors, Edward Koch, David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani, were unsuccessful not only in achieving the right to run schools, but also in transferring billions of budgetary dollars to meet their needs. When Bloomberg took control of the schools, he immediately undertook radical reforms. Changes were essential. Only 40 to 42 percent of students received their high school diplomas on time; crime in the schools was frightening; there were on average 30 to 34 students per class; and almost 40 percent of students dropped out and did not return. The lowest figures were found among children of immigrants and residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods.
According to Klein, mayoral control increases responsibility for what happens in schools, while the former system of district school boards bred chaos, corruption, nepotism and excessive politicization of the education process. In 2002, Michael Bloomberg decided to place Joel Klein, a lawyer specializing in anti-monopoly legislation, in charge of the system of 1,420 schools and 1.1 million students, instead of a New York teacher or educator. A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Klein served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, where he successfully led the prosecution against the Microsoft monopoly, before being appointed Schools Chancellor.
“Bloomberg invited me as an uncorrupted outsider and as an experienced and independent manager able to achieve results. After seven years, it is clear that, in spite of shortcomings, we have achieved amazing successes,” noted Klein. “We have opened 350 new schools, including several charter schools, and have closed 80 failing schools. We have significantly raised teachers’ salaries and linked their level (and bonuses) to the results of educators and school principals. Today, almost 60 percent of students graduate on time, class attendance is up sharply, the crime rate has dropped significantly, and the percentage of parents satisfied with their children’s education has risen to 90.
“We have significantly increased the role and the authority of principals and opened a Leadership Academy for them. We have shut down many bureaucratic overlying structures and simplified the contract with the teachers’ union. For the first time, parents have a choice of where to send their children to school – to thematic schools, international schools (with several foreign languages), charter schools, all-boys schools, or even schools for children of a certain sexual orientation. And it has become very convenient to select an appropriate high school from a list of 14 choices! Seventy-five percent of the time, children will go to the school that they themselves selected, and 95 percent of the time they will get one of their first three choice schools they selected. At the same time, this screening allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of the work of educational groups.”
Chancellor Klein did not hesitate to speak about successes and was not apprehensive about making politically incorrect statements. “Nobody wants to get an F. But, just as in real life, some schools get As and monetary bonuses, while others resent low grades, but must adjust to new, stricter conditions. We have been able to increase the number of Spanish-speaking and black principals, but all the same we have a catastrophic shortage of professional educators from racial minorities. We would like the diversity of communities in our city to be a unifying strength and cultural mosaic, not an adversarial force. This is why we have programs to develop tolerance and prevent hate crimes.
“Both presidential candidates are now praising New York’s school reform. We are put forth as an example in Time and The Wall Street Journal. Following our example, school systems in San Diego, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and the District of Columbia have begun to appoint top managers, lawyers, directors of companies, and pioneering leaders of charitable organizations as chancellors rather than university professors or former school teachers. The most important thing for us is to ensure the continuity of Bloomberg’s policy of responsibility, creativity and reform.”
In answer to a question on mistakes made, Klein admitted that he did not initially devote enough attention to speaking with parents, journalists, teachers and other concerned citizens. He also called the most unfortunate situation with changes in school bus routes last winter a mistake. He closed with a promise to further improve high school education in the city.
United Federation of Teacher’s Vice-president Leo Casey, who came to the meeting with the journalists wearing a jacket with Obama ’08 and Obama-Biden pins, completely tore apart Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and his aides. Casey immediately characterized the relationship between the union and the Department of Education as permanent war.
“You can’t impose managerial models from above. You can’t put as head of the New York school system a non-professional, a corporate lawyer who sees business models and market relationships everywhere. You can’t pay students for taking tests! You can’t privatize public education. The union has a fundamentally different philosophy from Joel Klein. We do not believe that year-end standardized tests can serve as the main criteria for measuring the success of students. You also have to take into account the ability of children to conduct independent research, to write thematic essays, to speak in front of a group of people. Physics and mathematics should be taught not as abstract and boring subjects, but in a way that can be applied,” he railed. “We are educating intelligent citizens of the country, not cold consumers.”
According to the union leader, Bloomberg and Klein abolished the policy of social promotion to avoid promoting poor students into 5th and 8th grades and in so doing avoid ruining the rosy picture of successful tests.
“I used to teach at a school in Park Slope and know from personal experience how much time it takes to learn the art of teaching. Now it is not profitable for school principals to hire experienced, highly paid teachers; they would rather hire ‘cheaper’ new teachers. As a result, after five years of work, about 50 percent of New York teachers leave for other states, the suburbs or other professions. Principals have too much power and often find fault with teachers, ousting the undesirable ones for any reason whatsoever. Instead of paying thousands of dollars worth of prizes only for high test results, Klein should take other important factors into account: safety and order in the school, teamwork among educators, the percentage of students graduating on time (and keeping this under control for three years), and the amount of support for the school from the district. There is a huge problem with English-language learners. Over 75 percent of these are remedial students. This is not normal,” said the teachers’ union leader, citing his statistics.
To sum up the two meetings, I would like to say that the confrontation between the Department of Education and United Federation of Teacher’s Union certainly hinders constructive cooperation and school reform. Joel Klein probably needs to meet with parents and journalists from ethnic newspapers more frequently. And along with his fair criticisms of individual decisions by the mayor’s administration, Leo Casey must admit that there is a need for a more exacting approach to teachers and that conformity between the school program and current realities is important.
