The Atlantic: The Failure of American Schools

Here's a must read. The Failure of American Schools  by Joel Klein, former NYC School Chancellor, in The Atlantic.

Shades of Worcester, MA? I wonder what School Committee Chairman and Mayor Joe "The Union Ho" O'Brien would say to the article? 
 
Excerpt: Who better to lead an educational revolution than Joel Klein, the prosecutor who took on the software giant Microsoft? But in his eight years as chancellor of New York City’s school system, the nation’s largest, Klein learned a few painful lessons of his own—about feckless politicians, recalcitrant unions, mediocre teachers, and other enduring obstacles to school reform.

Three years ago, in a New York Times article detailing her bid to become head of the American Federation of Teachers union, Randi Weingarten boasted that despite my calls for “radical reform” to New York City’s school system, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and I had achieved only “incremental” change. It seemed like a strange thing to crow about, but she did have something of a point. 

New York over the past nine years has experienced what Robert Schwartz, the academic dean of Harvard’s education school, has described as “the most dramatic and thoughtful set of large-scale reforms going on anywhere in the country,” resulting in gains such as a nearly 20-point jump in graduation rates. But the city’s school system is still not remotely where it needs to be.

And from NBC CT another insightful story about American education. Click on pic to source.

The student body includes immigrants from 28 countries, the Day reports. And the school district Web site includes translations in 52 languages.

"We know from colleges and employers, that our students are going to have to know how to read and write in English if they are going be successful," Supt. Nicholas Fischer, told the Day.

Ain't it sumptin? Graduate from high school without command of the English language. Only in America!

Sounds like sumptin WSC Chair Joe O'Brien would support.

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