The Times interview with Caroline KennedyThe education section below. NYC Public Education Hero Patrick Sullivan's comment
Here's a highlight -- Kennedy criticizes the attention given to NAEP scores: "There’s too much reliance on these, you know, NAPE tests." Didn't take long to trot out those DOE talking points.
NC: How much of that job in the city schools involved going to schools? Did you do a lot of on-site stuff?
CK: I do a lot of on-site visits, you know, I think the job was
really to connect these schools with the broader city communities, so
that involved both working with the business community, training — to
train, you know, set up the Leadership Academy to train new principals.
So that involved going to meet with business leaders, it also involved
many trips to meet the new principals and the schools that they would
be working in. When it’s an arts curriculum that we put together, we
had the cultural community come in and work with the Department of
Education, you know, that’s trips to the schools where the arts
education is being delivered or not delivered, and we did a census,
basically, on what kind of arts were going on, how many kids are
exposed to how many disciplines of art throughout the city, so that
requires a lot of time, too.
NC: How many schools would you say you’ve visited over the course of that work?
CK: I can get you that number because they have a track of it, the Department of Education.
NC: There have been some discrepancies in the reporting on your job
there, which grants you were involved in, like the Gates grant. Some
people say that you brought that one in, or, I think Joel Klein said you brought that one in; some former employees of the fund said,
actually that grant was pretty much already in the works. Do you feel
like maybe the people who are fans of yours have been trying to bolster
you perhaps a little too much, and maybe giving you too much credit for
the fund-raising?
CK: Well, the Fund for Public Schools was started in the 80s, and
it really functioned as a sort of a pass-through for specific school
donations over a certain amount. And it brought in about an average of
$2 million a year, with more after 9/11 that was mostly intended for
the Lower Manhattan schools. So when we kind of relaunched it and
revitalized it, you know, now we've raised $238 million since then. So
I think that, whether it's the Leadership Academy, the Gates grant that
you're speaking of, you know, went to many of the partner organizations
who are developing, starting small high schools. But I think that,
right at the end there, I played an important role. So I'm not claiming
all the credit for the setup, for the planning those are planning
grants for 51 small high schools I mean $51 million for small high
schools. So this work had been going on for a long time. But there was
still a pretty a skepticism about private funds going to public
education, how they were used, and whether there were results. And what
we really focused on, what I really focused on, was trying to target
those funds to initiatives that would have an impact across the whole
system. Because there are a lot of organizations that either work in
individual schools, do partnerships, do, you know, arts education
services, many other kinds of CBOs and faith-based organizations that
work across the system. But there isn't anybody else who’s targeting
the whole system, so that was kind of an issue we defined for
ourselves, and I think that's why it's been effective.
NC: So your precise role in the Gates grant was what? You came in at the end...
CK: It coincided with the time that I came into the department, and I think it was important to Bill Gates that I was there.
DH: What do you mean? I don't get it. Just that you were there physically? Or just that you had arrived?
CK: Well I don't know, you gotta ask him. But I think I, um —
DH: Do you deserve the credit that people are giving you for having helped to bring it in?
CK: Some of the credit, yeah.
DH: Can you talk about — given your work for the city schools, your
support for the schools, we have to ask, though there’s nothing wrong
with the choice, why you chose to send your own children to private
school? What was it about, why exactly did you decide to keep them out
of the public schools and go to the schools that they did?
CK: Well, they were already in school, and they were in middle school, I think, and in high school when I joined — yeah, so —
DH: When you started to work, yeah. But at the point that you decided to send them to private school, why? What was the reason?
CK: Why? Well, I think that I made a decision that was best for our
family, and I think that everybody should have, obviously, excellent
choices, and that's — I want every kid to have the same kind of
opportunities that my kids have. So I didn't obviously want to move
them for my own purposes, because they were on their path.
NC: So you never considered public school for them from the beginning?
CK: I think that, for us, for our family, the schools that we chose were probably the right ones.
NC: What about an issue that's very important in public schools, and
you’ve been involved in: teacher tenure. Are you familiar with Michelle
Rhee’s proposal to trade tenure for more money, essentially. Do you
think that New York City should have a system, for instance, where, or
even nationally, we should have a system where teachers should have the
chance to give up tenure in exchange for a lot more money? Is that a
policy you would support?
CK: I think that the whole issue of teacher training, teacher
support, teacher compensation, attracting and recruiting — I mean,
there are so many people that are looking to become teachers, and for
the very best reasons. But I think that what we see is that it’s a
really tough job, and that we don’t support teachers, we don’t support
the good ones, in a way that so many leave before five years are up. So
I think that we need to do an across-the-board work on the teaching
profession.
NC: Is that a good idea, though, that one idea?
CK: Well I think it's important to raise these issues. I don’t —
that's a really controversial idea, and I don’t think standing alone,
you know — Washington, D.C., is a separate thing. I mean, New York City
has a million — 1.1 million kids, 90,000 teachers; Washington, D.C., is
a really, really small system. So I don't think it is a
one-size-fits-all. But I think it's a national priority to support
teachers and do a better job of training and certifying —
NC: But really, this is a single important issue, I mean, it would
be good to hear your stance on it. Do you think that can work? Do you
think that —
CK: I think it has to be done, you know, collaboratively with the
teachers and with the union. I think here the school-wide bonuses that
we gave, here, that we've done with the union and the city — I mean,
that is, I think, a good model. There've been — Arne Duncan,
the new Secretary of Education, incoming, has worked with the union and
I think that the reform efforts that they've made over time will yield
benefits in terms of student achievements. So if you just pick out the
most controversial one as a stand-alone thing, you know, I don't think
that’s really the way to go about this. I think if people can vote
it’ll be really interesting to see what happens. I think there's a lot
of experimentation going on around the country that we should pay
attention to. But here, I think these bonuses that are shared
schoolwide give everyone in the leadership team incentive in the school
to work together to raise the kids’, you know, achievement, and I think
that's going to be an interesting thing to see how that works. And the
schools, you know, have almost all signed up for it.
NC: So you're not going to answer about teacher tenure?
CK: About that specific proposal?
NC: Yeah. That's a big one. That could become a national issue, that could become —
CK: Yeah, it could be, so I want to watch — I haven't talked to her
about it, and I know what the concept is, and I think it's really
interesting. As I said, I think my initial approach would be to work
with, talk to everybody involved with that and see how that is going
down. And I think there's a lot going on in Washington, D.C., that's
going to play into that.
NC: Do you think test scores should be a part of tenure decisions? Does that make sense to you in as one aspect —
CK: You know, I think there's also a lot of problems with test
scores, and so, you know, I think we need to give the schools the
flexibility. There's too much reliance on these, you know, NAPE tests.
But No Child Left Behind is going to come up, right, for reauthorization in the next couple of
years and that is an area that I feel I would bring a lot, and that's
an issue and a set of issues that, you know, were I lucky enough to be
selected that we could discuss, you know, in more detail, but that's
something, an area that I have a lot of thoughts about.
Posts
