Lunch with Joel

So, Joel Klein has initiated a series of brown bag lunches with different departments at the Central Office of the NYC Department of Education. This is truly exciting in that most of Joel's time is spent running from school to school, press events (including an interview on NY1 that I watched last night), city council meetings and consulting with other political leaders from around the world about education reform (including, I just found out, the Mayor of Jerusalem). Today was our day to hear from Joel himself about his vision and his experiences but more importantly, to pose questions directly to him. He assured us that there would be no retribution for harsh/controversial questions and with his typical brand of humor, added that he doesn't really remember names so even if he wanted to, it would be unlikely ;-)

I was initally impressed by the fact that Joel actively asked someone to move so he could sit right in the center of the table, as opposed to the head of the table- which landed him right next to yours truly. Strangely, I was actually a bit nervous to sit next to him as he has been elevated to a bit of a God-like status for me, even though I disagree wiith him on more than a few of his ideas. We covered many heated topics from pay-for-performance to bottom-up versus top down approaches, to the UFT. He is quite open about his passionate distaste for teachers sitting and waiting to collect their pensions with no plans to actually invest in their profession of teaching kids as well as more positive obsession over what he considers the bottom line: OUTCOMES (aka, student achievement, getting kids into college etc etc).

What became clear to me in this discussion is just how much of a black-box approach we are in fact supporting- as in, it's not the HOW, it's the WHAT. If it means we use charter schools or merit pay or anything else to drive achievement, it doesn't matter, as long as it works. On the one hand, I understand how important outcomes are, but on the other, I would argue that we need to have some insight into the HOW if we are ever to replicate the approaches that work and eliminate the ones that don't. I guess his point is that with data and knowledge management systems (thankfully, exactly what I do!!)- we will have the opportunity to not only measure our outcomes but capture at least some portion of the HOW. But in the meantime, the how seems relatively unimportant- just that we do it, and do it now. Obviously, a very compelling argument when you realize just how many of the students in NYC can barely read or write, let alone go to college and succeed. I asked him more about the tension between a bottom up approach and achieving efficiency/outcomes through a centralized approach to which he responded with a theory from Michael Barber (a McKinsey consultant) on change management: a large system can go from awful to adequate with a top down approach, but to go from adequate to good (or even great), one needs a bottom up approach in which users/consumers etc demand greatness. Thus, choice (or quasi market systems) are at the heart of great systems. I plan to do some more reading on this before I'm sold completely but certainly seems to have some merit.

Obviously, I learned a lot about more about his vision for NYC as well as its relationship to other cities and the national government's plans to push for higher standards and more accountability. However, I learned much more about communication and leadership. Why, is it, I though, that Joel is able to get so many people to listen to him. He doesn't have a particularly commanding presence when he walks into a room. What he does have is the ability to communicate in a way that's engaging, heartfelt, and even entertaining. He draws on a vast reservoir of knowledge and experiences from books, articles, his upbringing and so much more. He shares anectodes that personalize all of his beliefs from his father dropping out of high school during the Great Depression (and ending up as a miserable postal worker) to the teachers who refuse to give out homework because they don't get paid for the time to mark it etc. All of the stories are meaningful and have some underlying belief at the heart of them but also filled with a sense of humor. All of us seem to find a way to relate to his stories and thus, to his overall beliefs and message.

I'm not sure where my life is taking me or my career, but I'm so glad to be around people like Joel, and people like you, who remind me how important it is to be passionate about what you do and always strive to do better. Challenging the status quo isn't always easy but it's often necessary. Cheers to the rebels!