A Conversation With NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein

Mayoral control

Brian Keeler of Learn NY should not talk of the virtues of mayoral control when his organization will not disclose its source of funding - more of the same lack of transparency we can expect from the Bloomberg/Klein administration.

Despite six years of the Klein administration’s misinformation to the public, there is sufficient data to prove that his reforms have been basically ineffectual and have produced no significant improvement in student achievement.

The Klein administration claims of a 12 percent increase in Reading and a 19 percent increase in Math scores on the New York State Assessments are inflated. These results include the scores obtained in 2002-2003 well before the implementation of Klein’s reforms. Without the 6 percent increase in Reading and the 15 percent in Math in 2002 - 2003, the figures read a dismal 6.4 percent rise in Reading and only 4.2 percent in Mathematics.

The only independent check on student achievement in New York City also shows a completely different picture from that claimed by Klein. The results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress administered by the US Department of Education, considered the gold standard in testing, show that student achievement in New York City has stagnated since 2003 with virtually no improvements for Black, Hispanic and low income students. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/dst2007/2008455.pdf

We need real accountability and transparency, not Klein’s version of it. Mr. Klein’s public relations team has made sure assessment information is not accurately presented to the public. The failure of Klein’s reforms become all the more evident when we consider all assessment measures – declining SAT and High Schools Advanced Placement Subject Tests, one of the worst graduation rates in the country (43rd out of 50 large US cities), a 50 percent drop in students attending gifted programs in NYC, etc.

Mayoral Control

I draw the opposite conclusion from Brian Keeler's quote:

"No one would think of turning safety over to a board; the chief executive of the city should be responsible for safety. Well, why shouldn't he or she be responsible for education?"

Well, it's one thing to have the chief executive ultimately responsible for education. But if he turned the police department over to a businessman or a lawyer, instead of an experienced law enforcement agent, there would be something wrong. And if the police officers as well as the citizens told the chief executive that the businessman police chief was making faulty decisions that were harming their safety, and the mayor ignored them and made fun of them, something would be wrong with that, too. In fact, we would say that the mayor was not being accountable to the citizens of New York.

That is what is happening with education. The mayor and chancellor make decisions but are accountable to no one. All we can do is vote the mayor out--and since elections come only once every four years and education is not the only criterion for voting on the mayor, that is not a very smart way to run an educational system.

As a NYC parent with two kids in public school, I started out feeling hopeful about mayoral control but have not been impressed with the results. I haven't seen improvements in my children's schools - just staff and teachers whipsawed back and forth by a series of contradictory reforms and feeling incredible pressure to teach to an ever increasing amount of standardized testing. Then the test results that they crow about are contradicted by the US Department of Ed's National Assessment of Educational Progress, which shows flat results under Klein. I like small schools for my children, but have been disturbed to learn that many of the new small schools that boast improved graduation rates were able to exclude children who had special needs or were English language learners.

There seem to be fewer and fewer educators in the NYC Department of Education and more and more people who are true believers in corporate management theories and "data." The most disturbing part is that when there is data that contradicts their management theories they ignore it or spin it.

Joel Klein is a simple servant of the global economy. Globalization is at the very foundation of business model for schools, charters, vouchers, data driven instruction, merit pay, standardized testing, and most perversely of all, paying students to consume the corporate version of education. Klein's job is to pump toxic wastes, like incessant testing and mindless data collection and merit pay plans, into the public school environment to sicken both teachers and students. And bye-and-bye the corporations would have a brave new education system to serve their profit seeking.

And they were so close when the roof fell in recently. They had their blueprint for legally closing public schools, the No Child Left Behind Act, in place. Billionaire Bloomberg and his CEO sidekick Joel Klein were steadily weakening the public schools in New York City. Mayor Daley and Arne Duncan had nearly strangled the Chicago Public Schools. Mayor Villariagosa and Admiral Brewer were trying to get their hands around the throats of the Los Angeles Unified Public Schools. Jeb Bush, in and out of office, was calling the shots in Florida. Bill Gates had succeeded in winning Washington D.C. for Mayor Fenty and he in turn introduced the nation to a new level of ruthlessness and brutality in the person and policies of Michelle Rhee. Eli Broad's superintendents dotted the landscape from Vallas in New Orleans to Crew in Miami, chirping over the achievement gap and with grave voices declaring "the children of Singapore are eating our kids lunch." Many of those pesky democratically elected school boards had been eliminated.

Then just as the campaign appeared ready to bear fruit, their rationale for being, their precious global economy, crashed! Their pride and joy is on fire now. The likes of Klein will perish in the blaze.

Mayoral Control in NYC Disasterous

As a NYC public school parent, I have witnessed first hand how my son's educational experience has been degraded ever since mayoral control. Even by your own account, all of the NYC schools have moved down on your list. Stuyvesant from #15 to #23, etc. How do you account for that? Mayoral control in NYC has been a disaster and needs to be abolished.

Mayoral control

In NYC, the police have to follow city law. Under Mayoral control, the department of education considers itself immune from doing complying with city law. They are essentially a lawless operation, without any checks and balances -- and little transparency and/or accountability.

Meanwhile, Learn-NY refuses to disclose its source of funding. How accountable is that?

test scores are not up. The standards are low. To pass math exam in h.s. students have to get 34 out of 80 points to get a 65.

Scools did't get better. They the same way they were 4 years ago and even worst, becouase a lot of good programs were closed.

All they concern about is a nice looking bulletin board outside and inside classrooms.

Mayoral Control

Joel Klein makes a great point:

"So, what [New York City Mayor Michael] Bloomberg did, following on what a couple of other mayors did, I thought, was really significant in terms of saying the mayor's got to be responsible, and the city's got to know. I mean, no one would think of turning safety over to a board; the chief executive of the city should be responsible for safety. Well, why shouldn't he or she be responsible for education?"

Mayoral control has worked in not only New York, but Boston, Harrisburg, Chicago and Cleveland.

In New York, test scores and graduation rates are up, schools are safer and the mayor is accountable for the progress of the system.

The law is up for renewal in 2009 and we at Learn NY are working to inform the public about the merits of renewal. Visit us at www.learn-NY.org to find out the facts about this important issue.