Metro

Departing innovator Klein gets high marks

Researchers yesterday applauded the radical series of education reforms instituted by outgoing Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg over the past eight years, but warned much work remained to be done.

A downtown education conference organized by the social-sciences nonprofit American Institutes for Research credited the “Children First” program for a boost in graduation rates, test-score performance and developing a system of strong schools.

“Klein and Bloomberg sought a system of strong schools, each fitted to the needs of its student body and the strengths of its teachers, not a strong bureaucracy that could bend all schools to its will,” researchers from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington wrote.

Those reforms contributed to a 12-percentage-point gain in graduation rates between 2005 and 2009 to about 62 percent with summer school included, according to a study from the Research Alliance for New York City Schools.

Part of this improvement came from a radical change in the recruitment of teachers — which saw young Teach for America recruits and teaching fellows replace formerly uncertified teachers, another study said.

Klein also eliminated seniority rules that allowed teachers to force themselves on schools without principals’ approval.

“Taken together, these reforms created the flexibility, capacity and incentives for principals to alter the teaching workforce to improve student achievement,” wrote researchers Margaret Goetz, Susanna Loeb and Jim Wyckoff.

Salaries for teachers jumped 35 percent between 2000 and 2008, with a starting salary of $45,530 attracting higher-quality and certified applicants, the researchers noted.

In the 1999-2000 school year, a shocking 50 percent of teachers lacked the proper state credentials to teach. That number plunged to less than 5 percent by 2004.

“I don’t think there’s been a more successful record of an urban-reform agenda,” said Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the State Board of Regents.

But Tisch, who must sign off on Cathie Black’s appointment as chancellor, said there were challenges ahead.

“I think obviously we are all frustrated by the graduation rate. Even though it’s climbing, we know that 40 percent of the youngsters are not graduating, we know that 75 percent of the youngsters who are graduating need to be remediated,” she said.”

Still, parents were most worried about results that they said were too elusive.

“The bottom line I thought with these reforms was to make sure our children were learning. There are 239,000 kids in schools that aren’t proficient and who aren’t on track to graduate. That’s the bottom line to us,” said Zakiyah Ansari, a parent leader at the Coalition for Educational Justice.