Joel Klein, as usual, spoke hard truths at a DFER Colorado event:

Joel Klein: Lessons learned in NYC

By Nancy Mitchell on October 27, 2009

www.indenvertimes.com/joel-klein-lessons-learned-in-nyc

Joel Klein led the government’s antitrust prosecution of Microsoft before he took over the nation’s largest school district. Fighting Bill Gates, he said in Denver on Monday, was easier than trying to move public education.

“The one thing we’ve got to understand if we’re really going to transform public education is the education system, by and large, doesn’t want to change,” the New York City schools chancellor said at a gathering of the Colorado branch of Democrats for Education Reform.

“Sure it wants to get better, sure it wants to do a better job,” he said. “But it doesn’t want to do the tough transformative work. Because the system serves lots of needs quite effectively — it just doesn’t serve the needs of our children.”

Seven years into running the district of more than 1 million students, Klein is “revered” by some and “reviled” by others for his reform efforts, according to a New York Times profile. Next week, on Election Day, he’ll learn whether the mayor who appointed him, Michael Bloomberg, keeps his job.

But in his talk about lessons learned since his 2002 appointment, Klein seemed optimistic as he described the efforts undertaken in NYC’s 1,400 schools and his belief that public education can transform children’s lives.

“From the day I took this job until today, my friends, many people in my city say to me, you know Chancellor, we’ll never fix education in America until we fix poverty in America,” he said. “But let me tell you, that’s exactly backwards. We’re never going to fix poverty in America until we fix education.”

Klein talked about the difficulties involved in closing 90 low-performing schools, opening 400 new smaller schools and his belief in a “portfolio” approach to provide choice to NYC parents. He also praised the efforts of Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg.

Click here to listen to download a podcast of Klein’s 20-minute talk in Denver.