Collaboration Is Essential in Public Education

By Irving Hamer

Since leaving his position as New York City schools chancellor in December of last year, Joel Klein has been busy casting stones in every direction. Recently, he lobbed an attack on American public education in the June issue of The Atlantic , attributing his failure to achieve meaningful education reform to the teachers’ unions, school leadership, and even the goals and aspirations underpinning our public education system.

While Mr. Klein deserves some praise for his efforts at reform, he has only himself to blame for his ultimate inability to bring about real and lasting improvements to his school system. To suggest, as he does in The Atlantic, that his failures translate to the failure of public education reform in America is an insult to those of us in districts across the nation who are making demonstrable gains in student achievement year after year. If he did not succeed, it is because he did not bring the right skill set—vision, leadership, and appropriate experience—to the job of transforming the largest school system in the country.

It is vital to understand the shifting landscape of public education before undertaking any reform efforts. The current expectation of ensuring that all students graduate college- or career-ready does not represent a raising of the bar. It is a new bar altogether. Never before have our public schools been accountable for delivering an entire population of young people academically prepared to compete globally. Since World War II, public education has traditionally focused on producing a small but world-class academic elite to drive innovation; the rest would leave school with the basic skills required to staff the manufacturing sector that was the...