Oh boy...

Dear Colleagues,

Yesterday, voters reelected Mayor Bloomberg to a third term in office. In an election where education was a major focus, the outcome is truly a testament to your hard work and accomplishments—and what they have meant for our students. Over the past year especially, you brought about historic achievement gains despite the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. And you kept your focus even as our schools and our students’ progress were challenged during the loud debate over mayoral control and then, of course, the long campaign.

This third term provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to build on our success and take it to the next level. Many of you remember how things used to be. For decades, our schools were characterized by a revolving door of leadership and reforms that never had the support to produce any sustained results. That all changed in 2002. By the end of this four-year term, the city will have experienced 12 years of consistent and bold educational vision.

Mayor Bloomberg’s continuity of leadership has led to historic achievement gains and what I hope is a permanent culture shift—creating a school system that puts the interests of students above all else. Today, our students have many more good school options from which to choose. Our teaching force is more highly qualified. And principals have more authority than ever to make decisions that best meet the needs of their schools. But as proud as I am of what we’ve accomplished—raising our graduation rate by 15 points (to 61 percent), for example—so far we are still a school system capable of graduating just six out of ten students in four years. We must do better than that for our kids and frankly, for the future of this city.

We’ll get there by building on what we know works and by being prepared to innovate. We will continue to be guided by the pillars of leadership, empowerment, and accountability. The best decision we made was to focus our reforms on individual schools and the talents of those who lead them. As you know, we demand more than ever from our schools—and that will not change. We must continually set higher standards to ensure our children are prepared to tackle real-world challenges. That’s why I support more rigorous assessments and graduation requirements for our students. To help you meet and exceed these expectations, we’ve given you more information than ever to help your students achieve. Tools like ARIS and inquiry teams, for example, help identify students’ strengths and weaknesses so you can better target instruction, and we will continue to expand these resources.

But it’s also time to take a fresh look at how we organize our schools and deliver instruction: for too long, public education has been immune to innovation and that cannot continue. We already are piloting several models that reorganize our classrooms, redistribute our teacher talent, and take advantage of technology. Several other ideas are in the planning stages, and we need even more of them. We’re redefining Career and Technical Education so that our curriculum is tied to college standards and prepares students for jobs that are currently in demand. Indeed, for the first time, working with CUNY, we’ve created an integrated 9-14 CTE school where students get a high school diploma and an Associate’s Degree. And Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to open 100 more charter schools if Albany raises—or lifts altogether—the current cap on their creation. As always, I encourage you to e-mail me with your ideas and share your experiences.

With school improvement both a local and, now, a national priority, there has never been a more exciting time to be working in public education. The expectations for this third term are high and the debates will be noisy, but after more than seven years, we’re used to that. I’m confident New York City will once again lead the way.

Sincerely,
Joel I. Klein