School Reform in New York City

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG:

We need somebody with intelligence; we need somebody that is innovative.

JOHN MERROW:

It was just over three years ago that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took over the city's public schools and put this man in charge, former assistant attorney general and businessman Joel Klein. (Applause) Skeptics wondered how long Chancellor Klein would last. After all, New York City had seen 12 school chancellors come and go in 20 years.

JOHN MERROW:

You're starting your fourth year. What does it feel like? I mean, you're an old timer.

JOEL KLEIN:

It is. By the standards of this industry I'm an old timer. That sounds funny. I think it's wonderful. I mean, in a funny way it seems like such a short time ago when we had our first interview, and yet a tremendous amount has happened. And I'm very optimistic about doing four more years.

SPOKESPERSON:

Welcome. You all excited?

STUDENTS:

Yes.

JOHN MERROW:

When Mayor Bloomberg, also a former businessman, appointed Joel Klein, some wondered whether two people with no background in education could run the New York City schools effectively.

JOEL KLEIN:

Public education, which has been run by educators for many generations, has not succeeded. And so I think we need a different approach. But, you know, you see it in LA, you see it in Chicago, you see it in San Diego, Philadelphia. There are many so-called superintendents who are nontraditional which is less felicitously put, means we're not educators.

JOHN MERROW:

New York City is the largest public school system in the United States by far: About 80,000 teachers, more than 1,400 schools, and nearly 1.1 million students. How big is that? Only nine cities in the United States have that many people. Arthur Levine is president of Teacher's College at Columbia University.

JOHN MERROW:

Put New York City in a larger context. Are urban systems like New York and other large, are they governable?

ARTHUR LEVINE:

We don't know. The problem we have is no urban school system in America has ever been successfully turned around. The result is that we have the poorest schools in America in our cities for our majority of minorities and low-income students.

JOHN MERROW:

It's a huge challenge. Half of New York City 7th graders cannot read at grade level, graduation rates are low and the dropout rates are high.

COUNCILMAN ERIC GIOIA:

I look at the school system and I think this is going to be a work in progress. We need to make this our number one priority as a city after the next decade.

JOHN MERROW:

Eric Gioia is a member of the city council. His district has some of the most overcrowded schools in the city. Gioia questions whether public schools in his district are as strong as when he attended them 20 years ago.

COUNCILMAN ERIC GIOIA:

So you're telling me in your high school there's not even enough space for you to sit down and have lunch?

STUDENT:

There's a little cafeteria but everybody goes out because it is so small.

SECOND STUDENT:

At least you have a cafeteria.

COUNCILMAN ERIC GIOIA:

You don't have a cafeteria in your school?

SECOND STUDENT:

No.

COUNCILMAN ERIC GIOIA:

I looked at PS-11, the place I went, and I saw children literally in shower rooms going to school — I had to ask myself, are we fulfilling our obligation to ensure that every child in New York City is getting a first rate education, and I'm afraid that answer is not yes.

JOHN MERROW:

But if test scores are any indication, things are apparently starting to get better. Last year, reading and math scores in grades three and five went up on average about 13 percent.

JOEL KLEIN:

Our test scores have gone up in an unprecedented way. Our graduation rates are up; they're higher than they've ever been.

JOHN MERROW:

They're still terrible.

JOEL KLEIN:

Of course, but you can't change this overnight. I — you know, when I started out, I was the one who pointed out how unsatisfactory they are, and I still think they're unsatisfactory. But they're moving in the right direction — after stagnating at 50 percent for something like almost 20 years in the last couple of years they've gone up almost 4 percent. Is that enough? Of course not. But it shows the direction arrows are all in the right direction.

JOHN MERROW:

Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have taken some major steps. With state approval, they replaced the school board with an advisory group. Klein adopted a citywide core curriculum for all but the best performing schools and replaced some large high schools with small ones. Since 2003, 178 new schools have opened.

JOEL KLEIN:

But the most important thing I think is we have moved this from a culture of excuse to a culture of performance. An organization that has an excuse-based culture will continue to be a failing organization.

JOHN MERROW:

Klein's approach meant firing some people.

JOEL KLEIN:

I've removed quite a few principals who were nonperforming principals. That's something that didn't happen, and doesn't often happen in public education.

JOHN MERROW:

You canned what, 45?

JOEL KLEIN:

Last year alone 45, yeah, that made lot of noise.

SPOKESPERSON:

Karen Martin. (Applause)

JOHN MERROW:

Using $69 million in private funds, he created the Leadership Academy for training new principals who are then placed in the city's most troubled schools.

JOEL KLEIN:

You're going to transform schools in New York City and in doing so to change the lives of kids.

STUDENTS:

Ten, eleven, twelve —

JOHN MERROW:

Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg ended what's called social promotion, the practice of advancing students to the next grade regardless of their academic standing, even though some research indicates students who are held back are more likely to drop out.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG:

It doesn't do anyone any favors to anyone to send unprepared students up the line to the next grade. Those days, I think we all agree, are over.

JOHN MERROW:

This past summer more than 9,000 third and fifth graders attended mandatory summer school. About half of them did not pass and are being held back this school year.

JOEL KLEIN:

We've got kids in the eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade who are three, four, five years behind when we got here. That's a product of social promotion. And we're changing that, John, but can't do it overnight.

JOHN MERROW:

Principal Amy Andino, a recent graduate of the Leadership Academy, thinks one challenge of the Department of Education faces is getting everyone onboard.

AMY ANDINO:

The biggest problem that I see New York City or the Education Department of New York City faces is the buy-in. I think that parents still need to feel comfortable in this. I think they feel supported, but a lot of parents, whether a language barrier, whether it be a status barrier, whatever the case may be, are still not feeling welcome into our schools.

JOHN MERROW:

And it's not just the parents. According to Gioia, it's also the teachers.

COUNCILMAN ERIC GIOIA:

I speak to teachers pretty frequently. And I don't want to say they're disgruntled, but their morale has been sapped because I think there's a real feeling the mayor doesn't really appreciate what they do every day and the struggles they have.

JOHN MERROW:

What do you recommend?

COUNCILMAN ERIC GIOIA:

The first thing I would do if I was the chancellor of the school system is make peace with my common allies, and that's the teachers and principals who actually go out there and educate children.

JOHN MERROW:

Making peace will not be easy. Teachers Union President Randi Weingarten addressed her members at rally recently.

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

But you deserve a fair contract and you deserve it now, and you earned a fair contract and because of our unity and determination we will get a fair contract!

JOHN MERROW:

Tell me what's going on right now. I mean, you haven't had a contract for while white a while. How long —

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

It's ridiculous. Two and a half years without a raise — the longest ever.

JOHN MERROW:

Do teachers feel like they're the enemy?

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

Yes. Not from the public. But teachers feel that the mayor and the chancellor see them as the enemy. You know, look, I like Joel Klein. I think he's smart, I think he's tenacious, I think he wants to do the right thing by kids. I think what ends up happening is that he looked at the teachers and the union as his adversaries, as opposed to his allies.

JOHN MERROW:

For the union the big issue is money. Veteran teachers in some surrounding suburbs earn about $20,000 more a year.

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

The union wants teachers to be able to do their jobs better and to have a bigger piece of the economic pie so that their members can live and thrive and the member's families.

JOHN MERROW:

Klein wants other changes: Longer teaching hours, less reliance on seniority and an easier way to terminate bad teachers.

JOEL KLEIN:

What happens in the school system like New York is teachers don't get terminated, they get passed through system. Oftentimes they end up in schools with the greatest challenges.

TEACHER:

If you have a diagraph of the word, what are you going to do to the diagraph?

JOHN MERROW:

Klein also wants to change the way teachers are paid. Right now, salaries are based on educational background and time on the job. He wants to pay the best teachers more.

JOEL KLEIN:

Do you know any organization that's run way that way, except for an organization like ours? In other words, somebody who gets paid whether you work hard or don't work very hard, whether your kids do well or don't do well, that's a system in which often times people say, "Well, look, I'm going to get paid the same."

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

I said very publicly let's take the 200 worst-performing schools and let's create an enterprise zone. And let's pay everyone who goes through those hardest-to-staff schools more than we pay people in the rest of the school system.

JOHN MERROW:

And what did the mayor and Joel Klein say?

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

They rejected that proposal.

JOEL KLEIN:

I don't want a zone. I have a school system to run. When you say 200 of our toughest schools, I've got all of my schools in varying degrees of toughness. We don't need an experiment; we need to educate our kids.

JOHN MERROW:

Chancellor Klein wants more changes than the union seems willing to give, which raises the possibility of a teacher's strike.

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

The next time he'll get a hug is when we have a contract.

JOHN MERROW:

Do you expect a strike?

RANDI WEINGARTEN:

Look, nobody wants to strike. No one. A strike is bad for kids, it's bad for the city; it's bad for the school teachers. But at one point or another, it may come to that. You cannot rule that out.

JOHN MERROW:

Because it's also an election year, schools will be in the spotlight more than ever, according to Arthur Levine.

ARTHUR LEVINE:

The beginning of this year is going to be really hard for both Joel Klein and the mayor. The reason is we're going into a mayoralty election in which the mayor has said, "Judge me on the basis of the quality of the schools."

JOHN MERROW:

It's going to be an interesting year?

ARTHUR LEVINE:

It's going to be a fascinating year. I'm glad I'm not Joel Klein.

JOHN MERROW:

Do you ever wake up in the morning and want to pull the covers up over your head and say, "I don't think I want to go to work today?"

JOEL KLEIN:

It's not like that but there are certainly days and there are days in this job and not everyone is– I'm a pretty optimistic guy with a clear sort of sense of mission about this. You know, I believe in the work we're doing. So for all those reasons I don't want to kid you and say there are not times when I say to myself, "Why this?" I mean, it's tempestuous, it's difficult; there are a lot of challenges. But it's what I love doing.

JOHN MERROW:

Joel Klein's job could get easier in the not too distant future. In a 2003 landmark court decision, New York City won $14.8 billion from the state, however, state is appealing. If and when the money arrives, Klein plans to build new schools, strengthen the curriculum and implement merit pay for teachers.