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NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein
NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein addresses over 200 people at the Levin Institute
December 4, 2008
Joel Klein, the Chancellor of the NYC Public School System, was the featured speaker at a reception at the Institute on December 4th. The reception was part of a two day conference about responsible management education. In provocative remarks, Klein forcefully presented his case on why national standards and national assessments are crucial to keeping American students competitive with their counterparts around the globe.
When asked if the NYC school system is currently producing the “talent” that business and the world needs in the 21st century, Klein said, “Not yet.” He cited a study that placed American students 25th out of 30 OECD countries in science and math. And he quoted a former CEO of Intel saying that big companies are not going to hire American workers just because they’re American. They’re going to search the world for the talent they need at prices they can afford. He said people haven’t fully understood the impact globalization is having on our students and the way corporations are going to work.
According to him, national standards need to be implemented and benchmarked against the great national standards in other countries. Continuing to have 50 different states deciding what they think are the right standards, and often setting them far too low, is not a good recipe for success. He also said that assessments are needed to ma
ke sure American students are actually mastering the materials they need to know.
One way to achieve some of this, Klein suggested was to have academic and business leaders come together and agree on the skills and knowledge base our children need and let them design a set of real standards and real things that need to be learned.
The greatest challenge to making this happen right now, he said is political resistance. People don’t yet realize the urgency of it. While kids from the wealthiest families are generally going to do fine, he said it was unfortunate that kids from working class and poorer families are being massively underserved in the current system.
Comparing American education to some of the more notably successful countries such as Singapore, Korea and Finland, is not a fair comparison. First of all those countries draw their teachers from the top third or quarter of college graduates because teaching is one of the more respected professions there. In addition those countries have relatively homogeneous populations. So adopting their model isn’t going to work here. But he says there has been progress in the NYC schools. The bar has been moved. However, he said the road ahead is significantly longer than the one already travelled.
Another controversial area Klein touched on was compensation. He said the US needs to move away from an industrial model of education where teachers are reimbursed on longevity of service. He suggested moving to a different system where there would be, for example, pay for performance, hardship, or the teaching of a particular subject matter such as math and science.
He gave everyone much to think about.
