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April 17, 2007
Klein Specifies Restructuring of City Schools
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein unveiled new details yesterday about how the city school system will be organized once the 10 regional superintendent offices are abolished in September as part of the Bloomberg administration’s latest restructuring of the bureaucracy.
The reorganization is a sort of inversion of the city school administration. Instead of the traditional model in which principals work directly for a superintendent, each of the city’s more than 1,400 principals will choose a “school support organization” to work with their schools, and will pay these groups out of the school’s budget.
“Until now many educational decisions were made outside of the schools and classrooms,” Mr. Klein said during a news conference at Education Department headquarters.
Principals will have a menu of choices, at various prices, Mr. Klein said. At the low end, principals will pay $29,500 to join the so-called “empowerment network,” in which they are largely freed from oversight in exchange for agreeing to meet performance targets that include higher test scores.
At the high end, schools can choose to contract with the Success for All Foundation, a private nonprofit company based in Baltimore that offers a “whole school reform” model at a cost of up to $145,215, depending on enrollment. Smaller schools will be able to contract with the Success for All for as little as $44,694.
While the chancellor maintains that freeing principals from the daily oversight of superintendents will give them more power than ever to raise student achievement, critics have urged the Bloomberg administration to halt its plans, saying that too much is changing too fast and that the bureaucratic reconfiguration will not help children.
Principals are being asked to choose among three options: empowerment, in which schools are organized into networks and led by network support teams; partner support organizations, in which nine private nonprofit groups can be hired on contract to provide support to schools; and four learning support organizations, run by former regional superintendents, each with a different theme.
Officials expect that the learning support organizations, because they are run by veterans of the city school system, are likely to attract the largest number of principals.
Kathleen M. Cashin, now the superintendent of Region 5 in Brooklyn and Queens, is offering a “Knowledge Network” group that will help schools impose a “content rich” curriculum, focused on crucial facts that students need to know in science, literature, history, the arts and music, at a cost of $42,438 per school.
Laura Rodriguez of Region 2, in the Bronx, is offering the “Leadership Learning” support organization, which will focus on strengthening the skills of principals and assistant principals, at a cost of $55,000 per school.
Judith Chin of Region 3 in eastern Queens has created the “Integrated Curriculum and Instruction” group, which promises to help schools develop a multidisciplinary “thinking curriculum,” at a cost of $47,500 per school.
And Marcia V. Lyles of Region 8 in Brooklyn is offering the “Community Learning” support organization, which will focus on partnerships with communities and families. Dr. Lyles has set three price levels: basic for $33,750; premium for $39,850; and elite for $66,675. Failing schools needing the most help will pay the highest price.
The private groups that will be partnership support organizations include the City University of New York and New Visions for Public Schools, a New York City group.