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5) The graduation rates are a distortion. As your station reported in May, a Columbia School of Journalism PhD candidate (Jennifer Jennings) showed that the number of high school graduates does not match the number of in-coming ninth graders. Before Klein, students had the opportunity re-take classes. True, it was common for students to take six years to graduate. At least this was better than being pressured to leave the school for commercial trade schools or GED programs. A real Regents high school diploma is better than a GED certificate.
6) The value of a New York City public education remains troubled. The CUNY schools are having to put the vast majority of NYC school graduates through remedial education in English and mathematics.

These comments address just the beginning of the ways that Klein has mis-served the city. These examples of wrong-headed policies would have been addressed *publicly* had they been subject to open discussion by an independent body. The Senate is to be praised for not renewing mayoral control. After seven years, it is a demonstrated failure. Bravo to Brooklyn's Senator John Sampson for aiming to have greater variety of voices on the new Board. Let's hope that the new Board will have some real independence and power.

3) He has exerted a social class bias in closing down schools. The closed schools has happened extensively in schools with high minority and low income student populations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan. It has not happened in southern Brooklyn, eastern Queens or Staten Island. In the wide-spread closure of large schools he has foreclosed the opportunity for students to have options in their English classes, their foreign language choices or chances to study in Advanced Placement classes. Now, there is no possibility of taking AP classes, there is only one choice (within one grade within a school) of English class topic or foreign language. No more French, German or Italian, just Spanish.
4) The city has neglected to provide special education resources (special education-certified teachers and classes) in schools. Now, special education students are injected into regular education classes. As students and teachers will tell you, this move often leads to greater disruption in the class. This neglect of special education has forced the United Federation of Teachers to launch a campaign for monitoring the denial of special education resources.
Why the neglect of special education resources? For one matter, the appearance of large percentages of special education students in schools is seen as a negative indicator. The solution? Just erase the special education students.

The PEP body that the Community Board referred is the Panel for Educational Policy.

On Klein there are major problems in reportage, except for WNYC and a couple of reporters for the tabloids, the city's media are merely repeating the press releases of the city Department of Education.

This is a terrible civic example to the children and the public. In history classes there are warnings against the concentration of power in one person. It is called autocracy, the word is treated as a dirty word. Yet, there is no critical discussion of the ills of this kind of leadership.
As to specifics of his mis-leadership,
1) Klein has misallocated resources into no-bid contracts for consultants. Millions have been spent on these consultants, while schools have scrimped on teaching staff and resources.
2) On January 21, 2003, Klein adopted the misguided "Everday Math" program. This poorly conceived constructivist approach to teaching math was twice (several years prior) rejected in California after careful studies of the program. (See the New York Sun and the City Journal on this issue.)

A specific example of a burning issue that is important to parents which has not been resolved by Klein is the carrying of cell phones by students. As a parent I understand why young people, who are travelling long distances through dangerous neighborhoods, need to carry a phone. As a high school teacher, I never allow students to have their phones out or in use, even though I know that many of my students have a phone in their bag. (My school does not have metal detectors.)

This issue would best be resolved on a school by school basis, rather than the top down mandate from Klein.

This supporter of Klein must be on Bloomberg's payroll. No one can come up with an education policy of Klein because he doesn't have one. It is all about accountability which means everything must be reduced to numbers. These numbers can be manipulated in infinite ways. The focus has shifted from providing instruction to producing numbers. This is why Klein is so unpopular with parents and teachers in the public schools of all classes.

Brian,

And he answered that charge for an arts exam. Were you paying attention to what he said?

He sited the NAEP, which does have an arts exam. Of course, the NAEP is quite a different kind of exam. It's not for sorting or ranking students or schools. Rather, it is for assessing the state of the nation, states or even districts. It has broader content in its tests, and an entirely different model for how they are taken.

Klein, of course, does not support the NAEP.

The caller is right.

Klein et al. but so much of their intellectual energy into the charter schools, which are such a small minority of the schools in this city. The problem is not simply money or space.

He sets an agenda in his organization, one that does not give focus on most of the students.

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I could forgive him for his own lack of education credentials and experience if he surrounded himself with advisers who could make up for his deficits. But he clearly does not want to do that.

That's a general problem with this mayor, he shoves lots of things down out throats without any input. He assumes whatever he wants works and it right. Well it's time we wake him up and let him know he's not always right.

The central offices should support the branch managers.

Klein's answer is to cut off responsibility for them entirely (i.e. charter schools) or outsource that support.

I would not support a leader who does not believe that he can lead his division to do its job.

The Board did not even discuss the issue, nor did it take questions or comments from the citizens who were present.
They are acting on the presumption that a Mayoral Control bill will pass before school opens in Sept. This was a pro-forma meeting to accord witht he sunset of the current Mayoral Control law, nothing more.
The Mayor should be commended for complying with the law, but his arrogance in assuming that the Silver/Padavan bill will pass and that there will be no need to discuss his continued support for Klein and his corporate management style is evident in the way this was done.
Absent a recall provision in the City Charter, the Mayor is accountable only every four years, and this Mayor has made it clear that he is prepared to buy each election as it comes up to ensure that his is the only voice that is heard.

An eight minute decision? What a travesty of democracy! As a public school parent under Bloomberg/Klein I have felt completely disenfranchised. This is just the icing on the cake.

I wear a button that says More Teaching, Less Testing. You would not believe how many people stop me to voice their agreement. I'm talking bus drivers, grocery store clerks, librarians, etc. Yet Klein's regime refuses to hear how unhappy people are with this aspect of an NYC public education. Aren't I supposed to have a voice?

Honestly, who considers the Board's decision fair? To even ask the question implies some deference to the mayor and Klein.