New York Voices; 410; A Year of Change

On. Behalf. Of all of us here in the school culture and community group we'd like to thank you for uplifting us for our purpose. I really just stopped by to get water today. A little too right. We are. I am so proud of what you have done. I believe what you're doing here is the key to changing public education. I believe if we don't have a new generation of leadership that really believes in transformational leadership and is unafraid to tackle the things in the system that stands between children and success that we're not going to succeed with all of our children.

It's the end of the school year for the 77 students of the Leadership Academy students who are days away from becoming principals in the New York City public school system. Not aspiring principals were hand-picked last summer to be part of a new program that schools chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg hope will turn out transformational leaders to help overhaul the public education system. Seventy seven students remain in the program. Now you're out there in the high water. And I just want you to think a lot about the following equation. How much you change the system. And how much is the system changing. You. Will watch as we continue to follow three aspiring principals as they learn to link. Funding for a year of change leadership in the principals office provided by the Wallace Foundation supporting ideas sharing solutions expanding opportunities additional funding for New York boys is provided by the members of 13 Michael Michel Martin and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Welcome to YOUR VOICES. I'm Rafael Romo. You know as the school year comes to an end kids aren't the only ones who are getting a report card. And tonight's education special will be evaluating the dramatic changes taking place in our public schools later in the program we'll talk with schools chancellor Joel Klein and the man responsible for training a whole new generation of school leaders. Bob knolling will also talk with a panel of education experts to find out if these two men are making the grade. Well we begin with the third episode of our documentary a year of change in which we examine the city's innovative efforts to turn exceptional men and women into New York public school principals. We followed three aspiring principals from the classrooms at the leadership academy to schools where they shadowed a mentor principal. They're now preparing for their final step to run a school of their own. The aspiring principals are days away from becoming principals. After 10 months of training they're waiting to hear when they'll be pleased. At this point I haven't heard anything about living with this day to day and I keep checking my

email to see if there's any indication I'm getting a little crazy but it's a very exciting time. This experience right now compares to definitely your acceptance letter in college. Definitely the arrival of your new baby. Along the lines of finding out what. Sex the baby is when it comes. Would. It. Be. I'd love it if I had a tough school because I think. That's where the real work needs to be done. There's been so much planning and so much talking over the last year that actually for this now to become a reality it's actually no where we're going and where we're going to be working and to take that ride past the school or to take you know figure out how to get there to go look at the school report card. You. Really. Have something concrete. To begin to plan. Get ready for prime time. Now. For some prime time is already here. Alexandra normalizer is now officially a principal. Well when I learned. That I had been approved.

Finally it was. A very exciting moment. I called down the director of my partnership organization I called my mentor. I called my partner. I called my mother. It was just a great great feeling. Most of the aspiring principals in the academy are inheriting an existing school Alexandra's submitted a proposal and has been approved to open a new international school in September. A school that will cater to recent immigrants. We are meeting the Chinese students Tibetan students said to me right away. There should be a your mind. We know historically the. Chinese and Tibetans. We know historically they have be in the medium. Why am I going to do that. That's a question I'm thinking about now. I'm going to wait and hope. Initially we will have 100 students all of them ninth graders and somewhere between four to six teachers.

Part of Alexander's preparation is meeting with the planning committee of educators and administrators who are advising her on every aspect of her new school. One of things I found when we started Cleave's International was that brand new teachers. This happens every parent when teachers are expected to carry the same load. And have the same responsibilities and be equal people teaching for 30 years and. They're being stretched beyond their feeling to security. I. Went to high school and I have a lot of mentors and lots of teachers to help me along the way. I was. Starting a new school and I have a mentor. I don't have any curriculum. That's way too much pressure to put on a first year teacher. We tend to want teachers teaching for at least two or three years but I don't know if that will be possible. Especially when you're dealing with. Science teachers and especially. Teachers. What might be good. To. Get. Somebody as soon as possible and then arrange for them to visit. Schools.

And send messages. To. The life of an aspiring principal was so. Hypothetical in many ways. I mean we always talked about our schools as they weren't real things. And as much as we talk about them and as much as we thought of them as our own. Until we actually met students who might. Possibly go to our school until we actually talked to parents who might be parents of students who might go to our school and until we meet met teachers who might teach at our school. It wasn't until then that I realized that. Wow you know this is now real. And I'm actually going to be a principal. Of the first time I saw the school building. I was really happy and excited to be here. This is a great facility. It's fabulous space. This is the fourth floor.

This is where the International High School will be. Taking. Yeah. Grade doesn't do it for me. And what I love about this is. Again. Like. It's just so. Bright prospect Heights is undergoing a change that is also being tried another New York City public schools. It was a large high school of approximately 12 students. But it's being transformed soon house five smaller schools that will share the same building. Very fortunate to have. Landed here. There were many. Candidates opening high schools this year and I think that I'm not exaggerating when I say they all wanted to open a school in Prospect Heights. Assistant principal security Peggy Griffiths has been with Prospect Heights High School for 20 years. The school trains. Very. Institutional. Door. Our children have Phoebe all over the. All the students ran the school. The school has always had a bad

reputation but the students were very nice. I figured I could stay here and work here and do some good here. It was horrible. It is absolutely gorgeous today and we're very pleased to note. But you have to know what it used to be in order to appreciate what it is today. People forget that even in a quote unquote bad school there's always good kids. And I think at the very core the kids are good and they're waiting for somebody to notice that and to work with them. And it's really great that you know after 20 years you still have that. I mean if you've already shared spaces with the summer breeze with summer. Alexandra also with her fellow principals to coordinate the summer schedule and use of the building. She got a little friendly advice. Your smile. It will go your way. It. Is Alexander prepared for September. Her classmate Rafaela is waiting to hear about her

placement. I'm very excited. And of course with excitement comes a little bit of anxiety and going into the unknown. I was born in Dominican Republic. And I lived there with my grandmother. My mom and dad came to the United States to work and. To establish themselves. In order to bring my brothers and sisters in line to the United States. I came here when I was seven years old and came to a very cold country and I was placed in a school where it was the English classroom. English only it will sink or swim for me. And I was in first grade. They hold you back again because of your age. Usually when you come from another country at that time in 1977. And as a teacher and as a bilingual teacher that is one of my main goals to provide opportunities for children that come from other countries. Children. That come from immigrant homes or

speakers of native speakers of other languages. Have a lot to bring to the school system. To have a lot of knowledge and a lot of language skills that we as educators have to learn how to use to build on those skills. Before she takes over her own school. Rafaela is spending her internship in Brooklyn at P.S. 2 0 5 under the leadership of principal Neal Oprah molla. My new mentor principal. Is. A model mentor and my first visit to the school was with a colleague and the same principle that. Used to be an assistant principal in the building. And the way he introduced us was it was shocking to us but it was. Very comforting because he says they're here to mentor me. And I'm here to learn from them. And that set the stage for. A trust relationship where we feel open and free to discuss any issue that comes up. I definitely wish I had the training that Rafaela is receiving only because it's a real experience. I mean she has the

opportunity while she's not ultimately responsible what happens in this building. She is all the time she spends here is in every sense of the word a principle as far as my internship had to be done piecemeal. And it wasn't a real experience. In fact. This is a very real experience. I am interested in a place that has a lot of special ed students and particularly this. School because. I think that New York City is very diverse and a lot of our schools have a special population the same way they have an English language learning population. And it's in a very important experience to see it from an administrative point of view because we might be placed in situations next year where you might have a large population and we need to know all the regulations and all the other issues that you will be encountering. OK guys I'll put my order in. We visit classrooms more than once a day. You need to be there to support teachers to

to make sure that you know instruction is going on and that it's the it's the quality of instruction that that you desire the. Most effective leaders are visible. Good morning. And we need to be visible. Well Rafaela awaits to hear where she'll be placed. The people who will determine her fate are meeting to discuss leadership academy candidates for the first time all of the superintendents are working together to carefully match principals with specific skills to specific schools. Bob knolling CEO and Sandra Stein academic dean of the leadership academy are meeting with the regional superintendents and the new acting deputy chancellor for teaching and learning. Carmen Farina to find the right fit between aspiring principal and District. OK let's go and move to now our middle school truck and we're going to start with Larry Wilson. We interviewed Larry and. He's. Really. Talented.

And today he has spurred. News. Science and Mathematics. Exceptionally. Good. So. Get your. First. Skills in terms of his ability to build as well. Luckily for us he said. I was stunned. I got an email. From my supervisors collage on adoptee's I got it. Got an email from him. Oh Larry I think we we're definitely going to go with this school and I'm going to need you to start a little bit earlier. Well will not only be starting within days he'll be running a high school. So I was silent and I was stunned beyond belief one because I had always thought of myself in my mental model is that of a middle school educator and therefore I thought I'd be a middle school principal. I just had to pray number one to understand why high school what's going on here.

And then I began to understand that. The mission is a lot larger than what I had thought. Or as I said at the time God has enlarged my mission and once I understood that. And that that's what was going on. I accepted that and then I fell in love. Now I want to be there. I want to be working there. I want to meet the people I want to meet the children I want to walk the halls. So it really was like being the only difference is I really could sleep a whole lot better. I don't know who's going in that library. Which teacher and so we need to make a booking system. My first day as a principal I can't really right now think of a metaphor because that should tell you a little bit of what my day has been like but today I really just focused on getting into the classrooms to meet teachers at their craft to meet the students in their learning setting and in their learning environments just sort of be a larger version of myself. Having the largest to take in such a huge undertaking and a huge enterprise of meeting

400 plus new people in my life today I have 400 people in my life today. And so that was the biggest challenge was being able to be Larry Wilson. Mr. Wilson for each one of them. Good morning ladies. Good morning sir. And to watch children enter the building and come up that stairwell. And have him stop and look and say. Mr. Olson. Are you the new principal. Because the bus had been out and to just see them and to see that look on their face and it meant a lot and they smiled. A few kids probably went oh boy I. Am in trouble. Wilson is here. Glad to see you. I'm not happy about the time. Thank you for taking off. You do on time today. I'm proud of you. A number of the children were very helpful today and they really respect the

position and the authority of the principal. And I hope that never changes. And we will work to make sure that that never changes the morning sir. Well it's unclear how long before principal Larry will finally get enough sleep. We'll be watching as he pursues his dream of transforming his school. We'll also see how the leadership academy has prepared Rafaela to take the reins at an elementary school. And if it's given Alexander the tool she needs to set up a school from scratch that's on September edition of our New York Voices documentary a year of change. But right now for an evaluation of the Leadership Academy and its approach to training principles we have two views. Joining is our executive director of the American Association of School Administrators Dr. Paul Houston and the dean of the City College School of Education. Dr. Alfred Parmentier thank you so much for joining us. Now the leadership academy is a tough expensive and rigorous boot camp for aspiring principals. Is it the way of the future for training principals. If we had unlimited resources it's a very interesting idea. But given the

fact that. About 60 million dollars have been raised so far for a three year operation where people are taken in a rather concentrated arrangement where their salaries are being paid where they are essentially given a highly concentrate treatment. I don't see that the society is ready to expend that kind of money to train principals for the future. Paul what do you think. If it's what is needed should we pay for need. Clearly we should. I have a few years ago it was I think the figure I saw was two million dollars to train a pilot for the U.S. Air Force. So I was thinking about spending 12 hours to train a principal is going to touch the lives of thousands of kids over the course of their career is certainly not an unreasonable thing to talk about. I think of the context of the world we live in. It's probably not likely to happen in our lifetime. So what are the limitations of the more traditional ways of training principles. Whenever you have a shortage of any commodity in any area you always have

somewhat of a reduction of quality. And as a result the teachers today are not exactly as talented as I would like to see them be. They will be in time. But right now when we have a shortage there is a problem. But what about principals. Well the principals are selected from the teacher corps largely. And I think that diminution of of quality at the teacher level has been shown to also reflect itself at the principal level. One of the things that I think Bob knowling would say is that you know you get the degree but you don't get the experience and this is what this provides these principles hence why it's so important to spend the money. There are alternatives to this very expensive arrangement. And I think we would be happy to participate in variations of that. But they are more expensive than what currently is exists right now. And under the old system or the traditional system of person wants to be a principal they essentially have to invest their own funds to do the training in order to become a principal. There is no typically no

external support for that. And as a result we have a sort of a stagnation of a process where is when you infuse huge sums of private funds. You have the opportunity to innovate and to try things which clearly are better but extraordinarily expensive. Paul is it better to spend the money on teachers instead of on principals. I guess my bias is long term leadership always makes a difference in schools and you've got to you've got to make sure that you have strong leadership because you're it's difficult to have strong teachers without that or have even the strong teacher sustain themselves over time. You can have good teachers go into a situation where they have bad leadership and after a while they stopped being such good teachers because they are not supported. So I think you've got to really look at leadership as a critical variable in what goes on in schools. And so I would argue that a certain portion of the money has got to go to leadership under any circumstance and I think that I don't have a problem with the model that they've done here in New York I think. You know it's very tricky when we look at sort of learning more about it is a very expensive

bottle compared to what's probably going to happen in other parts of the country. So therefore it's probably has limited usage outside of New York in terms of all. Well this is the way it should be done. You know perhaps borrow some of the elements of it. But I don't have a problem with the fact that they're doing it here because they're addressing a need that they clearly have. Are we in this leadership academy. Is leadership academy possibly training spending all this money in training these people so rigorously for five years. This is the commitment that they have to make. Five years hence they're in essence training principles for the suburbs. I think the answer to that will lie in the lap of the chancellor and the board and the mayor because one of the real questions is how will these people be treated after they've gone through this leadership academy. How will they be supported and sustained in their work out in the field. That's where you're going to lose them if they have all these wonderful training and they're not given support in sort of a sense of possibility and efficacy of what they're doing that you're going to lose them if they're given support they might stay. So a lot of that is going to be about leadership up up to the line.

Right. Right. Al you said that there's so much at stake in this leadership academy that the dice are loaded that they're going to send these graduates to schools where they're bound to succeed rather than schools where they're really needed. Why. Well if you are running an experimental model I'm not saying that this will be the case but it would be a clever thing to do to send these new newly knighted principals to schools where they will succeed. So it looks good. So the model can replicate itself. It's a dicey thing. It's a gamble if you send some of these new principals into a low performing school. Now obviously if you send them to a low performing school and they do well the rise and the difference will be dramatic. Whereas if they go to a high performing school they won't show too much change. Well it looks like Larry is going to be kind of thrown for a loop. He expected to go to middle school he's going to be sent to a high school and he's got to be sent to a high school sooner than he expected and sound too easy to me.

I would argue they probably should be set to easier schools so they can get some sense of success under their belt before they move over. I would doubt just what I know about New York whether they will have the luxury of being able to do that with all 60 or 70 of them each year because my guess is there are a lot of difficult schools of the earth that are going to need leadership right away. They're probably going to like Larry get thrown into the fray. Now you know in a comment that you made earlier to us that the good thing about this model is that it's moving from making principals who want to be to choosing principals who ought to be. How is it doing there. Well I think from what I understand they're sort of tapping these people into it I think one of the problems we've had historically is people sort of go into leadership so sort of I choose to be a leader so therefore I'm going to go with that may not always generate the best leaders where sometimes if you go down and you tap someone the shoulders that have you ever thought about being a leader maybe it hasn't occurred to them but they have the skills and the ingredients that would be a wonderful leader in this situation. And

so I think that we have to broaden our view of where leadership comes from education. It seems to me that this in part is trying to do that and I would support that. I think you saw this as kind of a negative you were calling this cherry picking but what's wrong with cherry picking. There's nothing wrong with cherry picking but when you're trying to set up a model that will be replicable throughout the city on a larger scale you like to try to pick your target to be typical of that which will ultimately be the population that you're going to serve. But isn't that assuming that there aren't a lot of you know extraordinary people out there that you can actually cherry pick. They're the special forces of principals. There are people who demonstrate leadership qualities after they have access to the position that were not evident before. And I think that there's always that danger zone that you're excluding people from an opportunity unjustly. And I think people ought to have an opportunity to try a leadership position.

But assuming that something can be done with with the with the funding. Do you think that that this can be a model that can be used nationwide. They are doing a lot of things right. They've they've chosen a lot of areas of development that needs to be a part of any good principal training program and I would have no argument with that. I have a little bit of a caution in that. That seems to be a very high reliance on the business model. And and I just worry in general about education being too reliant on the business model. Got to say that we can't learn from from other professions or certainly business being one of them because there's an awful lot of things that educational leadership that is business like. You know I sort of think there are three R's with leadership resources you know results in relationships and certainly resources and results are things that business does a fairly good job with. I'm not sure of the relationship stuff that they're necessarily they think that they could teach us that we probably don't already have a pretty good hand.

We have less than 30 seconds. When are we going to find out if this leadership academy has been good for the kids of New York City. We'll probably find out how how well they've done in the probably the next two years to see how the schools that have been assigned to have progressed because the true measure of success is how the kids perform and how the teachers assess the principal and that's really the core that exists. I will say though that the business model that you're talking about Paul is also very tricky because in the business sector you can fire someone immediately. There are lots of things of that nature you can do in a business like which you cannot do in the public. If I get the chance or the mayor trying to ease that way into the public school as well. Well gentlemen thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to have you here with. I spoke earlier with the head of the leadership academy about knowing about a number of issues including the crucial role principals can play in transforming New York's public schools. You know one of the criticisms is that the leadership academy is quite an expensive proposition. Many in the staff are making good salaries and you're paying ninety two thousand

dollars for each of the participants is legitimate criticism that it's perhaps a bit too extravagant. Well I take offense to the notion that it's quote extravagant. What we have is something that's necessary. And if you think about the staff of the Academy which is about 30 individuals I think I have the best in terms of the collection of those from the private sector. And the top educators. You think about the fact that we've raised all of this money. The business community is not going to follow. An initiative that is not well thought out and doesn't have at the end of the day a return on its investment the investment that we're making is in leadership. And. The world. I come from there are very few people that would bet against that being one of the core elements of how do you have a successful organization. So it's basically an investment that you expect will pay dividends for the city of New York. Absolutely. You talk about the city of New York. This is an investment in kids. At the end of the day if we are unsuccessful in bringing stronger more capable better

leadership into the principal ship then we fail children. And if we fail children we're going to continue to have the sort of results that we have today in terms of 70 percent of these kids can't read at grade level. Dismal percentage of these kids who are passing Regents degrees is the goal of the Academy ultimately to fill all the vacancies of principals in New York City. I hope that never becomes the goal. In a system. You want to make sure that people who have come through the traditional tracts of staff developer assistant principals still have an entree to get into the job. But the Academy is not here to circumvent that process at all. It's merely to help change the mix with this awesome tidal wave of vacancies that's unprecedented in this system. Right. Six hundred. The next few years. Well they said when I came in 300 or 600 in three years last year there were 272. This year we know it's going to be well north of 200 again so our estimate may have been a little. Your goal was to raise $75 billion in private funds to fund the

academy over three years. You've already raised nearly 60 million dollars of what I read is correct. After the three years what do you do. How do you guarantee funds for the continuation of the Academy. We've gone to the private sector if you will the foundation community and ask for this $70 billion. It's a one time ask. The future of the Academy is left to the chancellor with some input from myself I'm the deputy super or the deputy chancellor of teaching and learning in terms of what happens to this organization. At the end of three years. But it probably will live on how it lives on and what function capacity placement within the GOP or outside of the DNC is sort of up for speculation. But this is a tremendous investment and it would seem to me that if we just let it dissipate after three years would be tragic but it is possible. One of the possibilities is that. In the future the Academy might be funded straight out

of the Department of Education budget. That's a possibility. Another criticism that's been voiced is that the money that's been spent on training these principles would have been better spent training teachers. How do you respond to that. At the end of the day. This bet is on building leadership and there's data as well as just common sense that would say there is a direct correlation of building leadership to student achievement. If in fact we can change. The performance of the principal. Everything has a downhill effect. That says that the working environment for teachers. The embracement of teachers. The helping teachers reach their capacity. We actually get the double on the triple miles for the investment once suspicion that's been voiced at least by one critic is that you have so much at stake in the success of the academy. That you will be placing at least your first graduates not where they're most needed. The tough schools but where they're most likely to succeed. How do you respond to that.

I wish that we could take the cameras into the planning meeting with the superintendents. There's nobody getting a free pass. In fact I would tell you that the notion of how we've gone about the placement process is that we've looked at where the needs in the city and then as we look at the candidates with the only thing we're considering for the candidates is where they live. In other words we are going to try to make sure somebody's living in Staten Island don't have to drive to the Bronx. Other than that these candidates are being mapped to where the system needs their expertise. And it has to be that way. Do you already know if the Academy has been a success or is it going to take a few years for that to be determined. The hard evidence that most of us want to see and that is the movement of student achievement is going to take a couple of years before we get that sort of evidence back. But at the end of the day that's not. The question that I am trying to avoid at the end of the day it is the important question that we must answer. If we do not move student achievement in my view we have failed. Thank you so much. Thank you.

This year has seen radical changes in the overhaul of the education system and of course not just at the Leadership Academy for a broader look at the many changes taking place in the city schools. We're now joined by the chair of the city council segregation committee even Moscowitz the director of the leadership center at Bank Street College. Janice Melinda's still any and by the author of Breaking free a book about school choice and contributing editor at City Journal of Public Policy magazine Saul Stern thank you all for joining us. Pleasure to have you all here. Councilwoman Moscowitz It's been two years since the mayor has taken control of the school system. We've had one school year where the reforms have been implemented overall have the reforms proved beneficial to the kids in New York City. I think it's really too early to tell and make a real judgment. I think conceptually many of the things that the mayor and the chancellor have proposed are moving us in the right direction. I would say that the reorganization. I was supportive of

dismantling the districts while there were some great districts. There were many districts that weren't working. And I think that the benefit of that wants to have this laser like focus on instruction which was a good thing. But others of the changes I think are taking us in the wrong direction. I think the one size fits all is misguided and I'm. I could cite many others. All right well I'm sure we'll get to it. So. Well if this was the first marking period I would I would give the mayor and the Chancellor and for needs improvement. I think despite the best of intentions there is chaos in the schools. I think the mayor's intentions on the school contract which is extremely important are our good buddies blown his opportunity to get a decent contract from the teachers because he's treated them like robots and like little children. I think that opportunities have been missed that there needs to be paid attention to broader issues. And if you take the example of the

promotional policy we needed to cut the social promotion. Yes. If we just look at that as an example we needed not just to focus on the third grade but we needed to look at what happens before and what's going to happen and what you're talking about is that the mayor was adamant and got through the policy where there will no longer be social promotions in the third grade unless they pass the minimal requisite exam. Exactly. OK well let's talk about that. Is that such a big deal so third grade should know how to read. And if they can't read they're going to have more and more trouble down the road. So in principle I support the idea of ending social promotion all throughout the system. The problem is once again is another area where despite the best of intentions they did something very quickly to try to bully their way through the process. And in my opinion what's the worst about this process is that they don't have a good program for teaching reading in the school counselor.

What's your take on the social promotion question. Well I applaud the mayor and the chancellor for taking on the issue of academic failure. I think that New York has a tendency to turn a blind eye. But like Janice said I'm troubled by the implementation first. I think it's too little too late. I think waiting till kids are 9 years old to have serious interventions is a problem. I would say that you know one of the reasons kids are two years behind in kindergarten is because we don't have full early childhood education and then if we're really interested in dealing with the lack of academic achievement then we have to as a city make a commitment to early childhood. I'm also troubled by the kind of Keystone Cops aspect of the implementation when the policy was first announced. They said it is going to cost twenty five million dollars and a few weeks later cost 41. Then it was 50 1 and now in the executive budget is on it's 150 but that's because they're trying to address some of the things that you brought up.

They're trying to make sure that these kids get the training to be able to pass the test whether it's summer school or through independent tutorials. That's why it's expensive because they're trying to get the kids it's not the expense that I'm troubled by per se although I worry a little bit that we're having the most expensive summer program in the history of the universe. What I'm troubled by is the lack of planning. If you decide and you know there are good reasons perhaps to decide to focus on this you need to know in advance how much it's going to cost and where the resources are going to go. If you're playing this day by day by day it is not going to be a quality program. I thought that I was quote Mayor Bloomberg when he first took over he said the school system is run like a rinky dink candy store. And I think in some ways he was right. But what I see is we're still running it like a rinky dink candy store we're making decisions every day. It's being made up as we go along. A policy that is this

important and affects this many kids and this many teachers has got to be thought out with a level of military precision. But isn't that what used to happen isn't it. Isn't that what used to happen in the school when the school board controlled the schools. They would take forever to make a decision about school promotion or whatever and nothing would ever get decided what we were promised not to have a fly by night operation. And what I see on a day to day basis not only on the retention but on on procurement on a whole host of issues. People are flying by this. The mayor who came into office saying admirably You know we got enough money to run this system. The reason it's not working is it's dysfunctional because we're you know we have no no incentive real incentives in the system the way in which any other enterprise in the United States would have incentives for good performance. Now these changes to know the result of this lawsuit the fiscal equity lawsuit and this as I said that money was not distributed at this rate.

The courts say that that is it that we need more money. They don't have enough money. That is a totally political. Well we need more money what is the mayor going to say no thanks. But he's saying basically saying we can't run the system with less than an additional six billion dollars. But the fact is there's enough money in this system to teach kids to read by the third grade. We were teaching kids to read by the third grade in the United States when we had one schoolhouses. As I said right now twelve thousand dollars per kid in New York City 12 billion dollar budget. The mayor wants to make it an $18 billion budget. Perry would be like like a very expensive private school. Isn't that enough. Is it enough. I mean the issue is more. It has. It's bigger than just the money. It's how we spend the money where we use it. It's take another. Another case in point. So the system was reorganize and superintendents. We have now 10 superintendents. One issue we should ask ourselves is what came with that. What kind of power. The superintendents get that they get a

budget that they get a significant budget so they can move an agenda forward maybe to support the test but also and this way I agree with you on strongly of options that it isn't. We don't we don't have to do every school should not look the same so that parents have our say so and you know exactly one of the biggest impediment in transforming the system are these contracts that teachers custodians and principals contracts that seem to be completely rigid totally inflexible and that make it very difficult to for anybody to really have control of the school where the democratically or not. And change in the way that it's supposed to change. What about that. Did your hearings make a difference. Well I think they did. I had five days of hearings on my teacher's union contract priest principals union contract and custodians union contract the teachers union contract with its 250 pages plus all of the ammo used in state laws is about

800 pages of rules and regulations. I would venture to say that no successful organization can be run with that kind of constraint. Now I strongly believe that teachers need to be paid more and that we need to dramatically improve working conditions. We ask teachers to work under the most unbelievable that goes without saying. But the question is are the contracts for the teachers or the contracts for the benefit of the students. In my view you have to have control over your personnel you have to principals have to be able to hire and fire. They cannot be held educationally accountable for what's going on in their building. If they cannot pick personnel I wouldn't accept that for my office. If someone got to work for me by seniority that would be utterly unacceptable and I don't think the school system should should accept it on the on the custodian front you know we have these ridiculous rules. The 10 foot rule they can't pay a tenth the 10th 10 feet and they can't put more than 75 cars on the floor a month quarter kind of stuff. And I think New Yorkers need to get involved in this debate. I mean the good thing about New York is that we

have an incredible civic minded community that cares deeply about education and they have to speak out on the issue of the country. The chancellor is saying that many of the teachers have contacted him saying they agree with him after the council is hearing that that he and the councilwoman are correct that these contracts have to be change you have to treat everything that comes out of a tweet with a grain of salt. They completely control the information. We don't know if he's done a survey. I doubt that he's done a real survey. I would love him to do a survey of some independent organization maybe Channel 13 and he would do a survey of the teachers and ask them what they think about the micromanagement about being told to not ever put it right anything on a blackboard with teachers often experienced dedicated teachers who've managed to figure out a way to control their classroom and impart knowledge that kids are now being told by so-called literary literacy and math coaches who are basically agents of the Chancellor. They're not responsive to the principle that they come in and they're sort of like like

you know security guards checking on whether the teachers in the classroom are following through on these petty and ridiculous mandates. Now that teacher that's being micromanaged like there is not going to be very responsive to the chancellor on the issue of the contract because they're scared. They think that they're being pushed around. The chancellor has said that the principal should be the main change agents in the school system. But with all these restrictive contracts can the principals control anything change anything they can. But the issue is how complicated is the process to do it. They can. They have. To spend too much time in order to write up one teacher. I mean something that we hear often about principals and their work is you don't write more than two teachers a year. You just you just can't. You don't have the you don't have the energy the time to do it. So yes it has to be simplified but I think I think the issue is an issue about stakeholders and an issue about collaboration

how do we work with each other in that respect that needs to go back and forth if we have educators out there in the field. Don't they know something. Don't they bring something to the table whether it's too central I think central It shouldn't be about broad strokes. And on a general direction but it should have a specific aspect to the issue of accountability openness and transparency. Have we gotten to the point where it's clear that the reforms went too far that perhaps the legislature should go back and create once again some kind of independent board that forces accountability that forces transparency. I don't want to give up a mayoral control fast. I think the mayor the mayor was courageous in taking in taking on this assignment. It's just a question that you know there's no guarantee when someone when that when a politician takes on a mandate like this that they're going to make the right decisions. And I think it's through forums like this and more criticism in the press that we hopefully we can we can get to him and convince

him that he's made a lot of poor choices. Do we need to go back to some kind of independent board or it's all right that Mayor or control of the school system is the good thing. It just has to do different policies. I think it would be a terrible mistake at this point to tinker with the law. That's not to say that I can't imagine some point in the future and I was very very critical of this administration in terms of what they did at the panel for educational policy. I was there and that night I was horrified. I used to teach civics. I was absolutely horrified by this summer summarily dismissing three of the members who didn't agree with the mayor and so forth. But having said that if the mayors didn't get three of his appointees or didn't agree with him on social promotion you were technically his appointees one was the borough president Stan island. I thought that was a terrible moment in not in our in our history. Having said that the city worked for more than 10 years to achieve mayoral control and I don't think you want to respond in a kind of backlash fashion. I think there's a lot of good that's going to come out of me own control and I think what we need to keep doing

is having forums where we demand transparency and we ask the hard questions. All right. We're going to have to be it. We're all out of time. Thank you so much. Thank you. We now turn to schools chancellor Joel Klein for his take on some of the issues we've just discussed. Chancellor thank you so much for joining us today. Pleasure to be with you. Look forward to first of all let me ask you have the reforms that you've implemented in our school system been successful. I believe they are. I mean again we're only in the beginning you know and it always amazes me people expect after years and years of dysfunctionality that all of a sudden you can institute reforms and things will turn around. But if you think about the major pieces for example restructuring in a way that cut $250 billion out of the bureaucracy we've now got parent coordinators we know from everything we're hearing the parent coordinators working well we've got coaches in the schools and indeed most of all I feel the leadership academy and some of the work we're doing there.

Well you saw the panel discussion that just preceded us and it seemed like the biggest criticism you hear about the reforms is that all the key decisions according to the critics seem to be coming from the top down never from the bottom up. And that the Department of Education Tweed where we're sitting now is trying to micromanage everything that's happening in the classrooms how do you respond to that. Well they do two things. I definitely don't think we want to micromanage what goes on in the classroom. I think teaching creativity is critical. Now don't confuse micromanagement with some form of management we have a system with very little accountability in the system. And so to some degree we need to make sure that we're actually supporting our teachers but also you know reviewing their performance helping them where they need help strengthening them where they need to be strengthened. You know one of the things people don't want to realize is how broken the system is right now. Every day I get e-mails from parents saying I want to get my

child into a good school meaning not the school that my child is going to know. That's a very hard thing to listen to day in and day out and you realize that there are many many schools in the city that parents don't want to send their children to that they're not performing well. They don't feel the kids will get a good education. And indeed for many kids this is their ticket in life. So we've got to get serious about changing the system and that's what I think is at the heart of mayoral control in any old days is I think you suggested in talking to the panel what was the board about. It was the politics of paralysis. Nothing could get done. The status quo would kill us. You know this is a city where everyone is understandably a critic and has his or her views the silent majority is clearly with us a great promotion policy the best example. It was in the paper day in and day out on the TV and so forth. The city by more than two to one supported the mayor in his leadership on those issues so I think that noise goes with the change.

What about the criticism by a city council woman Moscowitz that the manner in which this was pushed through was somewhat authoritarian that to members of what used to be the Board of Ed that were appointed by the mayor disagreed with him on social promotion. They're going to vote against him. And he just fired them. He followed the law. The law says explicitly that his appointees serve at his pleasure. Now I've served presidents I've served mayors. And if you can't support one of their policies I think quite frankly it's your obligation to say Mr. Mayor I can't support you. Obviously you ought to replace me. These are people who serve at the mayor's pleasure and if they can implement his policies then I think he's entitled to have people who can where are the checks and balances now what prevents you and the mayor from making mistakes if there's nobody or no entity that now can say no stop you can't do that. Well depending on the circumstances you have Albany that has checks and balances

of the city council has checks and balances. And of course you have the public the public makes his views known. The mayor has to run again for office he wants to be re-elected. So the democratic process is working. You don't have to have a vote on every single thing that happens in the system. That's where I think paralysis takes place. So the fact that you have different views or a multitude of views should surprise no one. This is New York. I mean this is what you expect. And frankly you know I think the city is supporting what we're doing and is supporting the boldness and the fact that we're willing to take tough positions on tough issues. What about the criticism I think we heard it in the panel that sometimes it looks like you guys are making it up as you go along. You know that's the kind of criticism you're going to get. But you think about third grade promotion policy has been an issue that has been around forever. Everyone I know knows social promotion takes place in New York. I have lots of students in high school who can't read but it's easy in the third grade because it makes you feel good. You know the

kids all get promoted. But what are we promoting them to. We're promoting them to failure. Now the mayor does something that's quite tough. He says I am going to say no more. Hold us accountable for educating children. Now you could say OK you know we would like to have three years of planning for this. Does that mean another three years of kids keep moving through the system. We have studied this every which way we can the kids who are performing the level one in a third grade almost invariably don't get out of high school and that's because they don't read. What about ending social promotion at all grades. Well as the mayor said I mean if you want to focus the system let's start at an early grade through grades the first grade that we do the testing it comes at that period from when a child moves from learning to read to reading to learn. Then let's see our experience with that. If we moved it at every level then people would say well it's too Helter-Skelter you know I said from day one if I can get more moneys for early interventions absolutely would I support that. Everybody has a million great ideas and I say to them where do you pay for it.

And they go find it. You heard Saul Stern say that two years ago the mayor said we have plenty money to educate our kids. If we did it right now he's saying and you're saying that we need five to six billion dollars or more. It's not just about money. If you're talking about money then I think you can waste a lot of money on a system question is really how you spend that money. So for example if you're really thinking to build an early foundation you need early childhood that costs money. That's extending the educational life for a child that costs additional dollars is no way to do that for free. If you look in a physical plant in our city there's no question that we have significant overcrowding. There's no question that we've delayed for parents year after year. So I agree with the mayor that if we don't use the money prudently then we don't deserve to get it. And if you look at the studies that have been done in the fiscal equity lawsuit every one of those studies will show you New York City has been systematically shortchanged. So it's just a question of fairness.

And in the end the question of making sure we get the resources we need but properly applied chancelor city councilwoman Moscowitz held hearings last fall which showed how restrictive and unwieldy many of the union contracts are in the school system. What are you doing to change that situation. There's no question and everybody understands it that these contracts which truly micromanage our school system which really say who can do what and when and which build a grievance based rather than a team collaborative based model are really I think interfere ultimately with the successful operations. But by and large I agree with you a Moscowitz that organizations that run on these highly regulatory contracts are ultimately not organizations that will succeed. What's the biggest lesson you've learned after one year seeing the reforms in action. One lesson I it keeps bedeviling me is just how do you effectively communicate things in a system as large as ours. Communicate it to your

own employees so people understand communicated to the parents to our students. That's an enormous challenge. The other thing you know put into your experience in New York is a place where everyone has at least one and often more than one opinion. And so whatever change process you go through is going to elicit an enormous amount of noise. It leads to a kind of robust public discussion and debate. We have made some changes. I've been the first to say that some of the things that we did didn't exactly work the way we hoped and so we have to make some changes in those. We will continue to do that. But I think the real challenge and outside New York you hear this all the time is New York is taking school reform seriously the paralysis of the past is gone. You've got a mayor who's willing to take the heat. That's what leadership is all about. You've got a chance on a Mayor who are aligned who see eye to eye on these reforms and are willing to fight for our kids. She can be a specialized kid English language learner could be gifted and talented.

There were all my kids and I got to treat a wall equitably. And that's it for this special edition of New York Voices. When the school year begins in September will present a complete one hour version of our documentary a year of change followed Larry. And Rafaela from their very first day students at leadership academy to their first day as principals of their own schools. I'm Rafael Romo. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week. But before a year of leadership in the principal's office

provided by the Wallace Foundation supporting ideas sharing solutions expanding opportunities additional funding for New York boys is provided by the members of 13. Michel Martin and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund