GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Teachers are signing up in droves to oppose a promotion for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

An online petition opposing Klein as Secretary of Education has collected more than 2,000 signatures since it was created Monday by a California education professor, Duane Campbell. The petition has attracted attention from dozens of Web sites, including those of Gotham Gazette and the progressive Nation magazine.

Many of the petition’s first signers were parents from New York City and educators from across the country, as Leonie Haimson pointed out on the NYC Education News e-mail list.

But increasingly, it appears to be people identifying themselves as New York City public school teachers, both active and retired, who are signing on. (There are 80,000 teachers in the city; most, obviously, have not attached their name to the petition.)

Below the jump, several teachers’ recent comments: (more…)

Wendy Kopp, the hard-driving founder of Teach For America, and Arne Duncan, the superintendent of schools in Chicago, are being touted as top candidates for U.S. Education Secretary by an influential  lobbying group that pushes for aggressive changes in American schools. Their names are included in a 34-page transition memo to President-elect Barack Obama prepared by the group, Democrats for Education Reform, and obtained by GothamSchools.

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has received support from DFER, which is based in Manhattan, but the group’s memo specifically rules him out as a possible Education Secretary. The memo says Klein’s aggressive efforts to improve public schools are admirable, but that they make him and the like-minded D.C. school chancellor, Michelle Rhee, a poor choice for Barack Obama’s White House. “The need for them to occasionally ‘break some china’ in order to affect much-needed change puts them and other hard-charging reforms like them in an unlikely spot to be selected for a role like Secretary of Education (a role for which either would be well suited),” the memo says. (more…)

Scholastic Administrator magazine has a Q&A with Schools Chancellor Joel Klein this month. A revealing nugget is who Klein suggests for Obama’s Education Secretary (hint: as he has said to reporters here, too, he’s not suggesting himself):

Q So who would you choose as U.S. Education Secretary?
A Someone with Michelle Rhee’s talent and passion. Or someone outside the box—maybe a venture capitalist.

Scholastic also asks Klein about the divide between Democrats on education:

Q Is too much being made about the “divide” between Democrats on education?
A The divide is between those who are and aren’t ready to enact radical reform, which means taking on a power structure that has controlled the debate for decades, defined the problems in education as something education can’t fix, and bestowed influence at every level.

(Hat tip to Alexander Russo)

SEATTLE — One of the most remarkable things about today’s news is how many important people are gathering at the Sheraton hotel here to listen to it. Last night, a crowd sharing drinks at the hotel bar included Chancellor Joel Klein, Chicago Superintendent Arne Duncan, Green Dot founder Steve Barr, and Obama education adviser Jon Schnur.

The two often-mentioned choices to be Obama’s education secretary, Klein and Duncan, sat next to each other. Schnur was a few bodies away, and across from them was Education Sector codirector Andrew Rotherham, who has been mentioned as a possible appointee to an Obama Education Department.

Below the jump is a run-down of people I’ve spotted in Seattle since I got here last night. I’m putting stars (*) next to people who have been named as possible Obama education appointees, and please help me add to the list. (more…)

Rumors are swirling that he could be named the next Secretary of Education, but Schools Chancellor Joel Klein doesn’t appear to be going out of his way to please the president-elect.

In an article about Barack Obama’s education policy in today’s Wall Street Journal, Klein criticizes the idea of holding schools and students accountable without relying on standardized tests. Obama has pledged to reform the federal No Child Left Behind law in part by decreasing accountability systems’ reliance on standardized testing.

From the article:

Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City schools, expressed skepticism about using alternative testing. “If you water down accountability, if success or failure depends on the eye of the beholder, you run the risk of letting down kids,” he said.

Hundreds of New York City parents are writing directly to President-elect Obama with their opposition to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as a Secretary of Education pick.

Organized by the Public School Parent Advocacy Committee, the parents are hoping to balance out the spate of positive media attention the chancellor has enjoyed in recent days. Today, for example, the New York Times noted as the only downside of Klein’s prospective participation on Obama’s “new team” his bitter relationship with Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

PSPAC, a consortium of PTA political advocacy committees, plans to deliver a letter to the Obama’s transition team that calls on the president-elect to choose an education secretary who has “deep practical experience in teaching and learning.” As a businessman, Klein has “disastrously neglected the fundamental needs of children,” the letter says.

Ann Kjellberg, a leading PSPAC member, told me she’s gotten about 100 signatures since Friday, when she first released the letter. Other parents are now circulating the letter by e-mail as well, she said. “I do seem to be getting some people new to this,” Kjellberg said. “A few have told me their stories of frustrations with the DOE that drive them to question a Klein nomination.”

PSPAC’s entire letter is after the jump. (more…)

The Gawker empire’s woman’s blog, Jezebel, makes a Secretary of Education nomination. Jezebel gives the nod to “someone who taught us all how to break education down to its simplest form, and taught us to appreciate the alphabet, letter by letter,” as seen in this video:

A New York City teacher is using Barack Obama’s campaign web site to add her two-cents to the whirling Education Secretary speculation. The site was set up so that any person could create his or her own blog, and the Obama campaign encouraged people to do that and “share your story.”

“Please don’t choose Joel Klein for Sec’y of Education,” is the headline of the latest post on this teacher’s blog. An art teacher who uses the alias “Woodlass,” she has no fondness for the changes that have happened in the city schools under Mayor Bloomberg.

Her post, after the jump, refers to Bloomberg and Klein’s work as a “malicious agenda”: (more…)

Judith Winston, the former general counsel to the Department of Education under President Clinton, will lead an education transition team for Barack Obama, a source familiar with the transition told me tonight.

The team will be part of the “agency review” effort, which examines each agency and presents the findings to the new administration, once that is assembled. Seems unclear as of yet whether for the U.S. Department of Education that includes both policy and management issues, or just management. I suggested earlier that Winston’s experience is more in the structural/management area.

Flypaper, the blog of the Fordham Foundation, first reported Winston’s role.

I sent a request for comment to the Obama transition team and have not heard back.

The Fordham Foundation’s blog, Flypaper, is reporting that President-elect Obama will announce his education transition team either tomorrow or early next week. The blog reports that Clinton administration official Judith Winston would lead the team, which would lay the groundwork for the administration’s first moves in education.

I spoke to Winston at her office today and she said she couldn’t comment.

If she is heading up a transition team, the choice suggests that Obama is still side-stepping that little problem of figuring out where to land on the spectrum of policy positions. My understanding is that Winston is someone who knows the bureaucracy well, but not necessarily someone with a strong stance on education policy. Winston was the general counsel to President Clinton’s education secretary, Richard Riley, for eight years, and Under Secretary for two of those years.

Even if a transition team is named, big decisions like who will run the Education Department will likely not happen immediately. People close to the process tell me that the president-elect has not made a decision on which person to select as Education Secretary. In past transitions, that decision has taken about a month or so to make.

In that department, here are the names I’m hearing, including a new surprise that I’ll start off with: (more…)