Departed Chancellor Had One Thing Right: No Magic Wand To Get School Change
I have been following the back-and-forth debate over the legacy of Joel Klein’s service in New York City as Chancellor. I have no wise words on that legacy to offer here but I do want to make a comparison between his tenure and that of Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C.
Apart from the substantial difference in the size of districts and tenure, Klein served eight years and Rhee only three, both were mayoral appointees and advocates of charters and more parental choice among schools. They accepted “no excuses” from teachers and principals, fought for pay-4-performance schemes, and thought that unions were major stumbling blocks to the kinds of reform they championed. Rhee’s brief tenure as a sprinter school chief will be remembered, I believe, as one where hostility to teachers and unions dominated reform talk
