Joel Klein: As Excellent As He Says He Is? Part I
I and many others spent a good deal of time last year documenting the real legacy of Michelle Rhee. This is important work: Rhee occupies an outsized place in the current debate about education "reform," largely based on claims of her own success, both as a teacher and as Chancellor of Washington, D.C.'s schools.
Thanks to the close scrutiny of Gary Brandenburg, Bob Somerby, Matt DiCarlo, Dana Goldstein, Diane Ravitch,USA Today, and others, we now know the true story: Rhee was never a miracle worker. She was, at best, an average new teacher (meaning she had a long way to go) and a mediocre large-city superintendent when judged by student achievement (when judged by other criteria, she was clearly a trainwreck).
It's important to get this on the record, because the anti-teacher and anti-union "reforms" Rhee implemented in
Thanks to the close scrutiny of Gary Brandenburg, Bob Somerby, Matt DiCarlo, Dana Goldstein, Diane Ravitch,USA Today, and others, we now know the true story: Rhee was never a miracle worker. She was, at best, an average new teacher (meaning she had a long way to go) and a mediocre large-city superintendent when judged by student achievement (when judged by other criteria, she was clearly a trainwreck).
It's important to get this on the record, because the anti-teacher and anti-union "reforms" Rhee implemented in
Joel Klein: As Excellent As He Says He Is? Part II
So I was going to wait a bit before the next post in my series about Joel Klein's claims of educational success during his tenure as the head of New York City's schools. But then the terrific Leonie Haimson reminded me that her group, Class Size Matters, had already done an outstanding analysis of NYC's standing in national test scores last year. Let's get their work on the record before we proceed.
We'll start by going back to Klein's claims about how NYC did on the National Assessment of Education Progress, the "gold standard" for measurement of student progress. What does Klein claim as his legacy, as measured by the NAEP?
We'll start by going back to Klein's claims about how NYC did on the National Assessment of Education Progress, the "gold standard" for measurement of student progress. What does Klein claim as his legacy, as measured by the NAEP?
Finally, on the federal tests — the National Assessment of Educational Progress — which are taken on a sampled basis every couple of years, the city showed improvement on each of the four tests — with significant improvement on three of them.
Indeed, in the fourth grade, the city’s students today are about a year ahead of where they were in reading and math when Bloomberg started.Before I get to the analysis by Leonie and Elli Marcus, let's stipulate something important: it's not enough for