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The New Chancellor


Having won control over the city school system, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has vowed that his success in improving the city schools should be the measure of his mayoralty. When asked what specific policies would be employed to produce such improvement, Bloomberg had so far deferred to his then-unnamed schools chancellor. A new chancellor has now been appointed, but answers to that question will have to wait a little longer.

On July 29th, Mayor Bloomberg announced that he would entrust his top-priority mission to Joel I. Klein, chairman and chief executive of Bertelsmann Inc., part of one of the world's largest media companies. The first city schools chancellor appointed directly by the mayor is a New York City native, and a graduate of the city's public schools, who even did a brief, long-ago teaching stint in the city school system. But Joel Klein is best known as the tough, savvy federal prosecutor who went head to head with Microsoft and other corporate interests as chief of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division during the Clinton administration--a Beltway insider well connected on both sides of the aisle.

Klein says he feels a great debt to the city schools for the preparation he received there. He was born in the Bronx, attended PS 205 in Brooklyn, and graduated from William C. Bryant High School in Queens. He currently lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In accepting the chancellor's appointment, Klein said, "I am a product of these schools and I love what my public education did for me...for me, the opportunity to work in this endeavor is really the most exciting opportunity."

Klein's selection to run the nation's largest school system came as a surprise to everyone. His name was not among the many that circulated, a list that included high-profile corporate CEOs, school system heads from other large cities, and former city officials. Since the announcement, parents, educators, advocates and others have been scouring newspaper accounts, press releases, and biographies of Mr. Klein for clues as to how and how well he will manage the 1,200 schools, 80,000 teachers, and 1.1 million students that make up the city public school system. Klein's experience is impressive but sheds little light on what his appointment means for our schools.

By all accounts, Klein is a very smart guy. Equally often, he's said to be a scrapper, someone who doesn't back off from a fight. He is known for his ability to forge alliances to get the job done, as well as for marshalling public opinion when it serves the cause. These talents will surely be put to the test in his new job.

Klein is said to enjoy the limelight and to handle the press well. We'll see. It'll be an uphill battle to keep the press in his corner in this job; the New York media has been notoriously ill disposed toward city schools chancellors. Besides, Mayor Bloomberg has expressed a strong preference that his appointees to the Panel for Educational Policy, the 13-member advisory panel that replaced the Board of Education, stay out of the papers, and he may ask the same of his chancellor.

Opinions about Klein's qualifications for the chancellor's job are predictably mixed. Many believe Klein is an excellent choice thanks to his intellect, his team-building, managerial, and problem-solving skills, and his experience understanding large, complex organizations. Others worry about his lack of any significant background in education. Klein also has been described by some who know him well as "liberal to the core." This sets off warning bells for those who interpret this to mean that Klein will not have the stomach to take on the unions, nor to make the systemic changes the school system needs to work. For everyone, the next weeks will be telling.

Educators, advocates, policymakers, and parents will be looking for signs of real change in the team Klein assembles. They will be looking to see what sort of educational expertise he brings in, and how much he relies on the education experts in the mayor's office. They will also be watching the relationships he develops with the school system's traditional seats of power to see to what extent he is comfortable with the status quo. As one teacher said, "Since he's not an educator, everyone will be fighting for his ear to control his educational pronouncements."

Because Klein is not an educator, the state education commissioner, Richard Mills, and the Board of Regents must grant him a waiver from the education administration credentials required for the chancellor's job before he can take office. As chancellor, Klein will have unprecedented power to run the system. Under the new state legislation, he assumes the powers of the Board of Education and has direct authority over the district superintendents and 32 community school districts.

With the new structure in place, it should become clear that management and accountability issues matter, but so do educational ones: The city needs experienced, well-supported teachers and talented principals throughout the school system, not just clustered in the schools that already work. It needs schools with the power and the means to employ the proven practices and programs that their own students need -- not one-size-fits-all mandates from above. It needs to allow meaningful roles for parents in the schools -- not just the chance for us to vent. It needs a functional process by which to create new schools and close dysfunctional ones. And it needs sufficient funding to do all these things.

The public education landscape in the city has changed, but, so far, only superficially. Yes, 110 Livingston Street will soon be just another address. But when the Tweed Courthouse becomes the seat of city education policy, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have a lot of work to do there to create substantial change to ensure that the city schools provide the city's children with the education they deserve and on which their futures depend.

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.

Improving The Schools


In 1842, New York City created its first board of education. In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg got it abolished. He then appointed seven members to a new educational policy panel, which replaces the board, and in an effort to stamp out the politics that has pervaded education in New York, declared, "I do not expect to see their names -- ever -- in the press answering a question either on the record or off the record."

In seven months in office, Bloomberg already has succeeded in doing what his three predecessors tried and failed to do: He gained control of the school system. He did the same thing with the School Construction Authority and also negotiated a new contract with the city's teachers. The ride has seemed so smooth that a member of his administration, Alan Gartner, could crow about it at a forum in June on education, joking that maybe we could "declare victory and go home."

Several hours after he made that quip, a New York State appeals court overturned what had been considered a clear victory for New York City education. A lower court had found that the state illegally deprives city students of their right to a sound education and so should give New York City more money for its schools. Now Judge Alfred Lerner wrote that the state does not have "to guarantee some higher, largely unspecified level of education." The equivalent of an eighth-grade education is sufficient, he said, adding, "society needs workers in all levels of jobs, the majority of which may be very low level."

The court's reversal was only the most dramatic sign that it is way too early to declare victory. The others are more routine: low test scores, concern about students never graduating from high school, and a long difficult road ahead for yet another schools chancellor, Joel Klein, appointed this week. Meanwhile, the budget crunch and Albany's power limit the mayor's ability to address these issues and many others confronting the city's 1.1 million public school students. Will the mayor's accomplishments so far make a difference to city school children? And, if not, is there anything he can do that will?

THE RECORD SO FAR

The litany of failure is familiar. Although the New York City school system boasts some excellent schools and outstanding teachers, three out of four city schools do not perform adequately, according to one report by the state Education Department. Seven out of ten eighth graders failed this year's state required reading exam, indicating they will find it difficult if not impossible to do high school work. Even though math scores have improved, about two thirds of youngsters in grade 3, 5, 6 and 7 fail to meet city standards.

Only half of New York City high school students graduate in four years and, after seven years, 30 percent still have not received a diploma. And that figure could rise with the state tightening the requirements for graduation.

Currently, 17 percent of the city's 80,000 teachers are not certified. The system needs 8,000 new teachers to be on the job by September. Of those, about 4,300 have already been hired, and outgoing Schools Chancellor Harold Levy said he expects the system to fill the remaining slots before school opens.

The problem gets worse farther up the ladder. Last spring, principals at about half the city's 1,100 schools had less than three years experience at that job, and more than 260 principals were eligible to retire in June. Finding replacements could be complicated. "There are not a lot of people who want to do this job," Hunter education professor Janet Patti told Education Week.

"So much of public life in New York City has improved in the last decade, but the public schools have not participated in the improvement," said a Manhattan Institute report this spring.

"Perhaps New York City is really two cities rather than one," Joseph Viteritti of New York University wrote last year. "There is one small city populated by the fortunate, who manage to send their children to the best public and private schools available. Then there is the larger city of the unfortunate whose children are routinely assigned to failing schools, frozen into a life of low expectations and meager opportunity."

The mayor vowed to change that. He has called education "the number one focus of my administration." "There are districts in our city where only 20 percent of the children do math and English at grade level. That is so unacceptable," he said.

Some 71 percent of New Yorkers are dissatisfied with the school system, according to a recent Quinnipiac University survey. But 64 percent of voters think Bloomberg will make "substantial progress" in improving schools in the next three years.

LIMITS OF CONTROL

The mayor's chief remedy is that he be held accountable for the schools' success - or failure. "President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read: 'The Buck Stops Here," Bloomberg wrote earlier this year. "And I'll send exactly the same message by relocating the administration of the city's school system right next door to the mayor's office. Putting the city's new Department of Education close to the mayor . . . will demonstrate how important education really is to all New Yorkers.

The mayor has taken some concrete steps.

When he took office, negotiations between the city and the teachers, who had been without a contract since November, 2000, seemed acrimonious and unproductive. The new contract gives them a 16 percent pay hike, which the teachers union says will make the city more competitive with surrounding suburban districts. Chancellor Levy and the union say the contract has already helped ease the shortage of experienced, licensed teachers, making it easier for the system to fill vacancies this year than in past summers.

In return for the pay hike, the work week for teachers will increase by 100 minutes. But Bloomberg did not win other changes in work rules, including in so-called "Circular 6," which bars principals from putting teachers on lunchroom duty or performing other noninstructional tasks unless 75 percent of the teachers in the school approve. Principals believe this provision severely restricts their autonomy.

And the contract presents only a temporary respite. It expires on May 31, 2003, and Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, said the union will want to begin negotiating prior to that.

In gaining control of the system and winning the right to appoint the chancellor, the mayor solved some problems and created new ones. First parts of the state law making the changes in governance are murky. Contrary to Bloomberg's wishes, it preserves a sort of board of education, called an educational policy panel, though it is unclear what it can do. "I don't think the legislation gives us a clear directive other than that the board should be less engaged and less engaging," Gartner said.

After the mayor, the real power lies with the chancellor. Originally Bloomberg reportedly wanted a corporate chief executive officer to fill the post. By mid July, the spotlight was on people who had run large government agencies or nonprofit organizations.

Every few days, a new name surfaced, only to be replaced by a new purported front runner a few days later. Retired AOL-Time Warner chief executive Gerald Levin. Onetime Deputy Mayor Nathan Leventhal. Barbara Byrd-Bennett, superintendent of the Cleveland schools. Stanley Brezenoff, another onetime deputy mayor. Even Yankee manager Joe Torre was floated.

In the end Bloomberg named someone who was largely absent from all the speculation: Joel Klein, who headed the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department for four years during the Clinton administration and launched the case that sought to break up Microsoft. More recently, Klein, a New York native, was in charge of U.S. operations for the German media conglomerate Bertlesmann A.G.

Klein has virtually no education experience -- he taught briefly -- but that did not appear to faze the mayor who said, ãThe real issue is can he manage people. He managed six or seven hundred lawyers. That's probably like herding cats, and if he can do that, he can certainly do this.ä

The four chancellors since 1990 all became enmeshed in political fights and unexpected controversies, ranging from the book "Heather Has Two Mommies" to school vouchers. "In order to take this job, you need fire in the belly," education consultant Beth Lief told the New York Times. "You get skewered by newspapers all over the place."

The law will eliminate the community school boards. Those who think many of the boards became "mini Tammany Halls" hail that move. But after they are gone, how can parents and community members be involved in the education system. Dennis Walcott, the deputy mayor with responsibility for education, says the administration is reviewing several ideas to make sure the voices of parents and community members are heard. No specific plan has been announced.

This worries some critics. "Parents are not going to have a say in their children's education now that Mayor Bloomberg has taken over the school board," one parent who was attending a Working Families Party demonstration to demand a parental role told the Daily News.

Despite all the debate how who control what, some experts say it does not matter much. Now-former Board of Education member Irving Hamer wrote in Gotham Gazette, that mayoral control "appears to be little more than a popular fad, with scarce evidence that putting the mayor directly in charge of the public school system will make much of a difference."

Bloomberg aide Gartner acknowledged, "Governance was a beginning and maybe a necessary condition but not the answer" to the schools‰ problems. He noted that after the mayor took control in Chicago, for example, the system saved money but saw no increase in the high school graduation rate.

WHAT NEXT?

Bloomberg and his aides have provided few clues to what he plans to do with the control he fought so hard to get. He may figure that in education, as in other areas, he has appointed someone he believes can do the job -- and will now let him do it.

Gartner said that the mayor will soon lay out a series of goals focusing on what goes on in the classroom, such as the need to have qualified teachers and the work rules affecting teachers and principals.

The key issue, says Deputy Mayor Walcott, is not administrative issues, but what goes on in the classroom, particularly in failing schools.

Some 90 percent of the schools placed on the state's Schools Under Registration Review list for failing schools have been in New York City, even though the city accounts for only about one fifth of the total schools in the state. And that ignores the many failing city schools that do not make it on to the list.

If the mayor has a magic bullet for improving those schools, he has not revealed it. Common prescriptions include hiring and retaining strong teachers, giving principals more authority, allowing parents free choice of public schools to create a constructive competition. Ironically, one the few concrete moves the mayor has made so far in improving instruction focuses not on the poorly performing students, but on the top ones. Last spring, he announced plans for three new elite high schools on City University of New York campuses.

MONEY

The system's problems can be at least partly traced to a money shortage, many school advocates argue. Although most concede the system could spend its money more wisely, they believe there simply is not enough to serve more than a million children, many of whom do not speak English or come from troubled families.

That is why, for example, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity filed suit seeking more funding for schools from the state.

Some observers think the city should come up with more money itself. "New Yorkers are going to have to look at the local share of the school budget," Ernest Tollerson of the New York City Partnership said. "Our argument for more state funding would be stronger if our local tax effort were greater."

It is on the issue of funding that Bloomberg has come in for the most criticism. In his budget, he initially called for cuts in spending on schools, although reductions in classroom programs were eventually averted partly because of state aid.

Throughout the budget debate, education advocates questioned how Bloomberg could call education his number one priority and not provide more money for it. At a June rally on school spending sponsored by the United Federation of Teachers and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, rapper Chuck D told thousands of students, "You've got a mayor who's a billionaire who wants to take the opportunity away from you to become the same kind of person."

Most members of the City Council supported a tax surcharge to preserve education programs, particularly school construction, but Bloomberg staunchly opposed it. And while Bloomberg says he supports the Campaign for Fiscal Equity suit, many of its backers fault him for not trying to use his influence with Governor George Pataki to get the state to abandon its appeal of the trial court decision.

Meanwhile, the Independent Budget Office predicts that more cuts may be necessary as the year progresses.

ALBANY'S LONG ARM

Whatever plans Bloomberg has, Albany will exert powerful influence over what he can and cannot do.

The first conflict could come over Klein's appointment. The state commissioner of education must approve any candidate for chancellor who does not have a formal background in education. This derailed former Mayor Ed Koch's attempt to appoint his deputy mayor, Bobby Wagner, to run the city schools. City officials told the New York Times that Education Commissioner Richard Mills has indicated the state will respond quickly to the city's request to waive the requirement for education credentials in Klein's case.

New York state has been among the leaders in the country in setting standards for its curriculum and in testing to see how well students are learning that curriculum. City students take state mandated reading and math exams in fourth and eighth grade, as well as an array of less significant tests like a technology exam and a social studies assessment for eighth graders. For better or worse, these tests have become a high stakes game with students spending hours preparing for them, teachers altering their instruction to address them, and students, teachers and administrators worrying how scores will affect their futures.

For high school students, tests loom even larger. In 2000, the state began requiring that all students pass Regents exams in order to graduate. By 2005, students will have to pass five such tests. Since fewer than 50 percent of students now pass even one, some observers fear graduation rates will fall in the coming years - unless teaching improves or the tests get easier.

The state also oversees failing schools by identifying them and giving them special help. And it controls who can teach. In September 2003, all New York state teachers must have passed a licensing exam. Some 17 percent of city teachers are not certified, although about 90 percent of the teachers hired this summer do have their licenses.

However much the state controls education, the mayor has declared himself accountable, and it is he to whom New Yorkers will look to have improved the ailing system.

 

Albany's Sway Over City Schools


When it comes to their children's education, New Yorkers must just as often look to Albany as to City Hall to seek solutions or place blame for problems. State lawmakers hold considerable power over city public schools. State laws determine, to a large extent, how schools are governed, funded, staffed, and monitored. The state education department, led by the Board of Regents, (who are elected by the state legislature), and the state education commissioner (who is appointed by the Regents), regulates what students are expected to learn and what requirements they must fulfill in order to graduate from the public school system. So, if you have children in the public schools or care about children in the public schools, you will want to pay close attention to and vote carefully in the forthcoming State Senate, Assembly, and gubernatorial races.

GOVERNANCE

Albany says who runs the city schools. The governor and state legislature recently wielded their power over the governance of the city schools by amending education law to give substantial control of the schools to the New York City mayor. The new law reduces the authority of the Board of Education and reconfigures it, giving the mayor the authority to appoint a majority of its members. The law gives the city mayor the power to hire and fire the schools chancellor, a responsibility that used to belong to the Board of Education. It also gives the chancellor the sole authority to hire and fire superintendents, a power that used to be shared with elected community school boards. If approved by the U.S. Department of Justice, the new law abolishes the local boards as of June 30, 2003, and establishes a task force to hold public hearings to determine what should replace them.

Mayoral control of the city schools had been sought by Mayor Bloomberg's predecessors but resisted by Albany until now. Still, the alignment of political forces that led to the current law is tenuous. Perhaps as a result, state lawmakers have hedged their bets with a sunset provision that causes school governance to revert to the previous structure in seven years. At that time, Albany lawmakers will revisit the issue.

Parental involvement in school governance is also regulated by the state. A 1991 state law to ensure "participation of parents and teachers in school-based planning and shared decision-making" requires a shared decision-making plan from every district statewide. The goal of school-based planning and shared decision-making was "to improve the educational performance of all students in the school regardless of such factors as socioeconomic status, race, sex, or language." New York City did not enforce this law until 1996 when the Board of Education adopted the current plan for school leadership teams. According to the plan, these teams of parents and school personnel are responsible for educational planning and school-based budgeting. The teams have been implemented with various results in schools around the city.

FUNDING

Though the city and the state (and, to a much smaller degree, the federal government) share the costs of the public schools, Albany has a big say in how the schools are funded and how much money the schools get. To start, under state law, New York City is one of five "dependent" school districts. This means that, as in the four other biggest cities in the state, the New York City Board of Education has no power to levy taxes for the public schools. Its budget comes out of the municipal budget, and therefore it must compete for city funds with other essential services like ambulances and garbage pick-up. Elsewhere in the state, the school district budget, and any new local taxes required to fund it, must be approved by a vote of the general public. Besides having considerable control over New York City's ability to generate income through taxes, Albany also has the power to force the city to contribute a certain level of education funding. The new governance law included a "maintenance of effort" provision aimed at preventing the city from reducing its share of education funding.

Albany also determines how state education funding is distributed statewide and how much is budgeted for the schools each year. The governor and the legislature negotiate state education funds as part of the state budget battle each year. Funds are distributed to the various school districts through 40 or so different complicated aid formulas.

The state education finance system has been the target of a lawsuit that has been going on for almost a decade. The suit, brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (which is where I work), charges that the state funding formula is unconstitutional: It does not provide adequate funding to every school district in the state and, as a result, it deprives students in New York City and other underfunded districts around the state of their constitutional right to the opportunity for a sound basic education. The lawsuit alleges that the convoluted formula by which funding is distributed is a sham and that the education budget is driven each year by political deals rather than student needs. The state argues that it does provide sufficient funding and that the education that students are offered meets the constitutional minimal standard.

In January 2001, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that the formula violates students' constitutional rights and ordered it to be reformed. In June, an intermediate appellate court reversed that decision. The Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, will ultimately decide the case. However, both Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Carl McCall and Andrew Cuomo, have pledged to settle the suit as their first act upon taking office as governor and to undertake a study to assess the actual costs of a sound basic education statewide as the first step in creating a fair funding formula.

The state also shortchanges the city on school construction money, according to the Educational Priorities Panel, a school watchdog group. The group says Albany uses a different formula to determine whether New York City needs a school from the one it uses for districts in much of the rest of the state. As a result, New York City got about $159 per student in building aid from Albany between 1992 and 1999, while the districts in the rest of the state (minus the four other biggest cities) got $347 per student).

STANDARDS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Albany says what requirements students must fulfill and what educational opportunity schools are required to offer. The guiding force for education throughout the state is the Regents Learning Standards. New York's Board of Regents and State Education Department spent over a decade developing this set of statewide learning standards, which were approved in 1996. They describe what students should know and be able to do at each grade level and in order to graduate from high school prepared for further education and the world of work. As standards go, New York's are supposed to be pretty good: New York was one of only two states that received an A grade from Education Week's Quality Counts 2001 for having clear and specific standards in all core academic subjects.

The state also developed a set of exams, supposedly aligned with the standards, designed to assess students' progress and hold them accountable. To ensure that all students are learning the skills that will prepare them for Regents study in high school, fourth- and eighth-grade students take exams in English Language Arts and mathematics. To graduate from high school, all students (starting with the Class of 2004) must pass Regents exams in five subjects: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Global Studies, Science, and U.S. History and Government.

The effects of standardized testing on students and schooling has become increasingly controversial (see "To Test or Not To Test"). Since the new higher graduation requirements, including the Regents exams, were instituted, graduation rates have dropped steadily. Concerned about these controversies, state lawmakers are planning a series of hearings on state education policies this fall.

What educational opportunity must the state offer? It seems reasonable to think that if the state requires schools and students to meet certain standards, the state would be required to ensure them the means to do so. This is not necessarily the case. Because of the disconnect (some say antagonism) between the state legislature and the state education department, Albany is famous for what are called unfunded mandates. That means, for example, that the state education department can require all schools to offer pre-kindergarten to all students who qualify for it or can require schools to limit class sizes in the early grades, and yet the governor and state legislature can cut the funding for these programs after the first or second year without changing the mandate -- both of which happened in recent years.

In the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, the state argued that it is meeting its constitutional obligation to its public school students if all have the opportunity for an eighth- or ninth-grade education. The appellate court agreed, but many believe that a higher standard is both necessary and guaranteed by the state constitution.

Albany also says how school success is monitored. New York's current school accountability system is made up of the System of Accountability for Student Success (SASS) and the Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) Process. A school's SASS rating depends entirely on its students' score on the state-mandated standardized tests given in the fourth grade, eighth grade, and high school. Each year, SASS sets performance targets for each of its schools for the forthcoming three years. This target aims to allow a school to compete against itself in improving its scores. If a school consistently fails to meet its targets or is repeatedly performing below the state standard, SASS has the authority to step in.

The Registration Review Process is the primary method by which New York currently holds "failing" schools accountable for educational performance. Through this process, the state education department identifies a number of the state's lowest-performing schools and then tries to help those schools and the districts that operate them to implement strategies for improving the academic performance of their students. There are currently 100 schools on the SURR list; 77 are in New York City. Some of those schools have been on the list for over a decade.

Not all schools that fail to meet standards are placed on the SURR list. SURR schools are those that are furthest from meeting the state's performance standards as measured on annual standardized tests. Once identified as SURR, a school is eligible for limited extra resources and expert assistance. A corrective action plan is developed in consultation with school staff, parents, community members, and the state education department. A SURR school has up to three full school years to make acceptable progress in improving its academic performance. If the school fails to move its test scores to an acceptable level, the school's registration will be revoked, and the school will be fully redesigned before it is reopened. Only a fraction of the schools where students are performing poorly receive extra assistance, and the amount of assistance received by the 100 SURR schools does not come close to meeting their basic needs. No system exists to ensure that all teachers have been trained in the standards or that all schools are equipped to meet them.

STAFFING

Albany says what requirements prospective teachers must fulfill. The state education department sets certification requirements that spell out what academic preparation, experience, and additional requirements teachers must have to be eligible to teach in the state's public schools. It has increased teacher certification requirements in recent years. By 2004, temporary licenses will be eliminated, and all teachers will need to meet upgraded certification and on-going professional development requirements.

An Albany incumbent is almost guaranteed reelection, partly because few voters recognize the impact of legislators' jobs on their lives. Parents, students, educators, and other concerned citizens need to keep the heat on Albany -- as well as on City Hall and their local schools -- for the education the city's students deserve and on which the city's future depends.

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.



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