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 A coterie of Colorado political heavyweights joined New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein Sunday to trumpet a new national effort to force radical education reform on recalcitrant special interests.
The newly formed, non-partisan Education Equality Project, co-chaired by Klein and the Rev. Al Sharpton, is framing school reform as a civil rights issue whose time, after decades of stagnation, has finally arrived.
“Every social movement in this country’s history has been built on failure, failure, failure, and failure, before reaching critical mass,” Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper told Education News Colorado following Sunday’s press conference. Education reform’s time has finally arrived, he said.
Klein said skeptics and cynics should hold out hope for a few reasons. First, he said, a new generation of urban superintendents is pushing fundamental change in a way never seen before, in cities including Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York and Denver.
Also, he said, the civil rights community and newer political leaders are showing “real leadership” on education issues. And finally, he said, “there has never been a coalition like this one.”
Speaking emphatically and sounding almost angry at times Klein, who has ushered radical changes in the nation's largest school district, said this new effort would only succeed if it pushed people harder than they were accustomed to being pushed.
"This is going to make people uncomfortable. People always like happy talk. But happy talk isn't going to force this issue," he said.
The Education Equality Project, Klein said, launched just six weeks ago and already boasts an impressive roster of “project members,” spanning the political spectrum. Leading luminaries include top school superintendents including Klein, Chicago’s Arne Duncan, Washington, D.C.’s Michelle Rhee and Baltimore’s Andres A. Alonso; politicians ranging from Republican stalwarts Newt Gingrich and Jeb Bush to Democrats Cory Booker (mayor of Newark, N.J.) and Harold E. Ford, Jr. (chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.)
The project’s mission statement asserts that unlike countless previous reform efforts it will succeed by “(taking) on conventional wisdom and the entrenched impediments to real reform, focusing on teacher quality and pay; accountability for results; and maximizing parents’ options.
Six principles underscore the project’s mission. They are:
- Ensuring their is an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective principal in every school by paying them like professionals, giving them adequate training, and weeding out the bad apples;
- Empowering parents by giving them more choices about where their kids attend school;
- Creating stringent accountability at al levels of all systems;
- Putting children’s interests ahead of al special interests;
- Calling on parents and students not only to demand more from their schools but from themselves as well;
- Standing up to “those political forces and interests who seek to preserve a failed system.”
Yesterday’s speakers included Klein, Hickenlooper, Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, State Senate President Peter Groff, Denver school board President Theresa Peña, two parent leaders with Metro Organizations for People, a local community organizing group, and Bill Kurtz, head of school at the Denver School of Science and Technology, where the event was held.
All speakers appeared careful to avoid stating overtly what seemed the clear subtext of yesterday’s event, and the project’s reason for being: the need to pressure teacher unions across the country to become partners in, instead of barriers to reform.
Asked if this indeed was the not-so-subliminal message of the Education Equality Project’s mission, Groff said: “All of those not joining us are invited to do so.” Then, smiling, he said to a reporter: “You have good ears.”
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