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Chancellor Klein So Far


When Mayor Michael Bloomberg exercised his hard-won right to appoint the city schools chancellor and selected Joel I. Klein, a former Justice Department antitrust attorney, Klein took over the school system with unprecedented powers and protection from public scrutiny. He reports only to the mayor. The seven-member Board of Education, which formerly had the power to remove the chancellor and oversaw many aspects of the school system, was sent home, and an advisory group, the Panel for Educational Policy, installed in its place.

This panel, chaired by the chancellor, is made up of five public-school parents appointed by the borough presidents, and seven other members appointed by the mayor. The borough presidents' appointees range from seasoned parent activists to a former city superintendent. The mayor's appointees include a number of educators, a museum director, and representatives of the private sector.

When announcing his appointees, the mayor spoke plainly about his expectations for the group, "In terms of the panel members, their job is to give advice to the chancellor, not advice to the press. I do not expect to see their names ever in the press answering a question either on the record or off the record.... I would not tolerate it for 30 seconds."

The policy panel convened for the first time on September 23rd and adopted its own by-laws. The 4:30 p.m. meeting at a high school in the Bronx scheduled no time for public comment and seemed, to some parents, to be designed to minimize public participation. The lack of discussion among panel members also left parents worrying about whether the parent representatives would voice parents' needs and concerns.

Chancellor Klein was also granted exclusive authority to hire and fire the city's district superintendents. He made quick use of this power to make permanent three interim acting superintendents, in Districts 1, 6, and 24, whose appointments had been opposed by those districts' community school boards-a problem that had vexed former chancellor Harold O. Levy.

Other major announcements from the chancellor's office recently include:

  • a program to use privately raised monies to award large bonuses to superintendents who increase student performance as shown by test scores;
  • the appointment of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg to raise private monies for the city's schools;
  • an agreement with the teachers union to use the extra work time teachers exchanged for raises to increase the length of the school day for students, rather than to provide professional development to teachers.

The chancellor has not yet tackled the problem of how to provide students in the city's failing schools with the educational alternatives they are entitled to under the new federal "No Child Left Behind" Act. Some 331 of the city's schools were last month identified as failing to meet state performance standards. The new law gives parents of students in these schools the right to transfer their children into successful schools or get them free tutoring. With nearly a third of the city's schools identified as failing, however, many parents have been unable to secure a place for their child in a better school. Mayor Bloomberg has asked parents to be patient while he and Chancellor Klein fix the schools.

Klein has announced a thoroughgoing study of the school system, which will be conducted by paid consultants with nearly $4 million of private funding from two foundations. To build support for needed changes, he plans to seek input from a wide range of stakeholders in the public schools, including parents, educators, community groups, and business. He expects to announce some major changes within 100 days.

Help for Parents: Insideschools.org

Advocates for Children of New York has launched a new website, Insideschools.org, that should be useful to parents and others seeking to be well informed about public school issues-especially if the new educational regime turns out to be as tight-lipped as many now suspect. Spearheaded by Clara Hemphill, author of a series of books on the best public schools in the city, the site offers parents important advice and resources for choosing schools; getting children the services they need (including the free tutoring to which they may be entitled), understanding students' and parents' rights, and pursuing complaints effectively. The site is free, easy to navigate, and also offers parents the opportunity to sign up for twice-monthly email alerts on timely or critical school topics like testing dates, school-related events, recent research studies, and advocacy opportunities. The site is also accessible, school by school, under individual City Council districts in Gotham Gazette's Searchlight.

Jessica Wolff is a public school parent and Director of Policy Development at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a not-for-profit coalition working to reform New York State's education finance system to ensure adequate resources and the opportunity for a sound basic education for all students in New York City. The views expressed are her own.

NYC Schools as Hi-Tech Hubs


New York's public schools and universities may be emerging as hi-tech hubs. Recently, there have been a number of federal, state and private sector initiatives that will improve Internet resources, wireless access and technological innovation at city schools and universities.

Internet Resources

Mayor Bloomberg's focus on improving NYC schools and his background as a technology-savvy chief executive officer may be an ideal combination. Last month, he and NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced Power to Learn, an online learning community for parents, students and educators. The Power to Learn Web site connects users to over 1,300 schools and libraries.

However, while the Power to Learn site is commercial free, it is sponsored by Cablevision. This may raise concern among those opposed to private sector funding for public education. "Corporate partnerships provide additional resources to help our students in school," said Chancellor Klein.

Expanding educational resources sounds like a benign goal, but one worries that it may be the sign of a growing trend. This could be particularly problematic if private-sector money is substituted for government funding for public schools, and even justify additional cuts.

The federal government also supports public-private partnerships. Recently, Samuel Gompers Vocational and Technical High School in the Bronx was the last stop on U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige's 25-city tour across the country to promote several federal programs, including one about technology.

"Technology is connecting parents to teachers," Secretary Paige said. "And, it is helping connect parents to assessments so we can measure the progress of every student. Partnerships among schools, businesses, parents and entire communities are equally important if we're to make sure no child is left behind."

However, private sector funding does not rectify the problem that schools are still funded primarily through local property taxes. This structure cripples low-income schools while suburban schools in wealthy neighborhoods thrive.

But, despite a rash of corporate scandal, 'social entrepreneurship' is starting to get more attention.

Wireless Access

The No Child Left Behind Act (one of the programs the education secretary was promoting) provides some three billion dollars to schools this year, and also allows states and local districts more control over federal funds.

Recently, IBM has agreed to "unwire" New York City schools under the E-rate program (another program the secretary was promoting), which subsidizes technology for schools by up to 90 percent. In other words, a wireless access point will only cost schools $75 under the plan rather than $1000. The E-rate program has already provided $500 million in technology funding to New York City schools since its establishment in 1997.

IBM will upgrade all 12,000 NYC public schools with wireless Internet access, which will allow more computers to be connected and more students to get online. While educators debate over the value of using technology in the classroom, it is vital that all students learn to use technology for common everyday tasks such as e-mail and research. Those who do not may find themselves unable to access jobs, which require familiarity with technology.

Schools outfitted with wireless access could also become wireless hubs for their surrounding communities. This would provide the basis for a free, public wireless network such as NYCwireless. Since schools are found throughout New York City, they are ideal centers for expanding the city's information infrastructure.

Technological Innovation

At the higher education level, the City University of New York has just received $7.5 million from the State Assembly to create a network of high-tech incubators. Incubators are hubs that provide office space along with administrative, legal and financial support for small start-up businesses. Over the next five years, the incubators are expected to support 200 businesses and create 5,000 jobs in low-income communities.

Currently, three community colleges are planning to open incubators that target the needs of small businesses in different industries. La Guardia in Long Island City will focus on design, Hostos in the Bronx will target health care, and Borough of Manhattan with sites in Lower Manhattan and Harlem will be a hub for entertainment and video game start-ups.

Four additional incubators are planned pending an extra $7.5 million from the state. Specifically, Hunter College is planning to house a biotechnology incubator Experts have long bemoaned the lack of connection between New York City's hospitals, which are the best in the country, and biotechnology companies in and around the city.

In addition, New York City College of Technology is well-suited to become an information services and communications hub. Despite the recent problems of the information technology and telecommunications sector, the industry has the potential to contribute to the city's economy in the long-run.

Thus far, NYC has done a relatively poor job at moving university research from the laboratory into the boardroom when compared to Boston or Silicon Valley. Perhaps this is because science takes second place in this town to finance, fashion, law, media and entertainment.

In contrast, Boston and Silicon Valley have succeeded in capitalizing on their university links and creating clusters of high-tech firms grown directly out of university innovations. It is hoped that New York City will focus on building links between both private and public universities and private companies so that new core competencies can emerge to boost the city's economy.

The City's Information Infrastructure Improved Internet resources, wireless access and technological innovation are all important to our public schools and universities and to the city's information infrastructure.

Private sector funding for these initiatives may have a role to play, but it must be clear that corporate sponsorship of city schools can only supplement government funding in this area. It is not a solution to the problem of under-funded schools and under-paid teachers and faculty members.

Laura Forlano is a doctoral student studying communication technology policy at Columbia University.

Chancellor Klein's Right-Hand Woman: Who is Diana Lam?


In another time, 54-year-old Diana Lam would probably have been a prime candidate for the job of chancellor in the New York City's public schools. However, in a city that today values corporate experience over an education background, Lam recently accepted a job as second-in-command. Lam will serve under Joel Klein, the newly appointed chancellor and former Justice Department official, whose only previous education experience was a several-month teaching stint three decades ago.

She will be the only educator among Klein's recently appointed senior-level advisors. As New York City's first deputy chancellor for teaching and learning in the newly-formed Department of Education, Lam will be the city's chief instructional leader and will undoubtedly be charged with providing the experience, knowledge, and energy that will drive reform across the city. Her efforts will be the yardstick by which Michael Bloomberg, the self-proclaimed "education mayor," will be judged.

So who is Diana Lam?

She is an experienced educator with a record of raising student achievement results in urban districts across the country, and her no-nonsense style has made her a widely sought-after reformer and popular with the business community. Lam's national reputation is due to the fact that she has, in the last 15 years, been at the helm of urban school districts in virtually every region of the United States.

Other city districts have wooed Lam both for her record of turning around dismal student achievement and for her firm belief in the ability of low-income and minority students to learn. "Your life should not be determined by your zip code," Lam once told the Christian Science Monitor, "Sometimes I'd hear from my staff that we can't do any better with these kids. I'd say, 'Wait...I was one of these kids.'"

Through the years, Lam's style has remained constant. She shakes up school systems with entrenched patterns of failure, implementing multiple large-scale systemic reforms at once, and criticizing those who prefer smaller, incremental changes. As she once remarked during her time as San Antonio's schools superintendent, "Change is messy. You can't have change without controversy."

Lam is certainly familiar with controversy. Her term as superintendent in Providence was overshadowed by long-term, bitter contract negotiations with the teachers' union. Her four-year tenure at the helm of San Antonio's public schools was cut short after "philosophical disagreements" with school board members there that resulted in an $800,000 buy-out of the remainder of her contract. Despite promising Providence in late July that she was in for the long-haul, her abrupt departure from that district to accept the New York post is surely linked, at least in part, to still-tender relations with the community and teachers there.

In the late 1980's Boston University, which took over control of the failing Chelsea, Massachusetts school system, chose Lam to be the first superintendent in this unusual public-private partnership. She was described by colleagues in the Boston schools as "a young star" who was "very savvy at motivating people and bringing reform." However, she also earned a reputation, with some, of "driving too hard and being too outspoken."

In Chelsea, Lam actively promoted school restructuring as a major reform tool. She also worked to expand teacher and public engagement in school decision-making. Her reforms, fueled by grant money she attracted to the district, included breaking up the city's high school into smaller schools within a school, instituting school-based health services and individual coaching programs for failing students, and cutting both teachers and programs she found ineffective.

While the scope of the reforms rattled some, Lam was named state superintendent of the year in 1991, and test scores and attendance rates both rose during her time there.

Shaking things up and moving on quickly became Lam's style.

Lam then moved on to Dubuque, a medium-sized, largely white city in Iowa that, demographically speaking, was in stark contrast to the other mostly low-income and minority cities in which she had worked. Two years later, Lam moved to San Antonio, regarded at the time as the worst district in Texas. She stayed in San Antonio for four years and for most of that time she had the support of the community, the local business community, and the majority of the school board.

During her four years in San Antonio, Lam accomplished a great deal. In 1994, 42 of the city's 95 schools were labeled "low-performing" by the state; in 1998, the number was down to six. As before, she promoted the "small school" philosophy, and in a controversial move split a large high school into four smaller schools. She instituted a district-wide school uniform requirement for students, and extended the school year to a year-round schedule. Basing her reform agenda on curricular reform, she mandated that every school in San Antonio adopt instructional reform plans from a range of options that fostered teacher collaboration.

Lam's self-described "sense of urgency" achieved results, but with a critical sacrifice: the trust of the city's teachers. The San Antonio teachers' union president said in 1998 that "teachers are overwhelmed with all the changes" and that "we can't dance any faster." Another union official described her management as "a totally top-down style of leadership."

Lam then moved on to Providence, where she was again widely praised for her work. However, similar run-ins with teachers and board members haunted her throughout her time as superintendent, and the Providence teachers' union vilified Lam during contract negotiations last year.

With funding from the Carnegie Corporation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Providence is massively restructuring its secondary schools. Lam also implemented a principal development program, a comprehensive professional development program for teachers, and a major literacy initiative in the city's elementary schools. The high school redesign efforts, in addition to major foundation support, attracted the support of the local business community -- so much so, that when Portland offered Lam its job as superintendent earlier this summer, Providence business leaders came together to fund a pension package for her to keep her in the city.

Last summer, Lam wrote in an op-ed piece that she wanted to stay in Providence to see the fruits of her work. That was, of course, until New York City Chancellor Joel Klein offered Lam, in her words, "the chance of a lifetime."

Lam clearly has her work cut out for her in New York City. Her record of success has been achieved in small city school districts, the largest of which, San Antonio, had 60,000 students. In New York, Lam will face a school system with over a million students.

But, if anything, the conditions in New York City are well aligned to draw the best out of Lam and avoid some of the downfalls she faced in other places.

First, as the handpicked choice of Chancellor Klein, with the full support of Mayor Bloomberg, Lam has the political support necessary for big changes. Her work in restructuring high schools into smaller schools also played a likely role in her consideration for the post. Finally, as the city's chief instruction officer and not its chancellor, Lam can focus on curricular reform -- considered her "genius" -- without the burden of other management and contractual issues that earned her the most enemies elsewhere.

In other locations, resistance to change stymied Lam's efforts at education reform. In New York -- with a new mayor, a new school governance system, and a new chancellor -- change is already here.

Joseph Wardenski, Senior Research Analyst at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc., is currently researching and co-editing a book on the national education adequacy movement. The views expressed are his own.



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