This might be the reason Chancellor Klein feels the need to constantly "reform" the system much to the chagrin of parents and educators...he says...
Listen to the interview here..."...“It’s very hard to get up day-in and day-out and not be excited about what you’re doing; so, I guess because of that I’ve been willing to take some strange curves and detours in the road.”
It’s hard to imagine that Harvard Law alum Joel Klein grew up in the public housing projects of Queens, New York. But at 13, he was inspired by the famous words of John F. Kennedy, “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
..But by 2002, Joel realized he wanted to focus on improving education: “If it weren’t for my education, my life could have been so entirely different.” He left his stable career in law in order to serve as Chancellor for the New York City Department of Education: “I knew it was the right time. Some people need the security; my sense was that it was just another hill to climb, and that there is something interesting around that corner that I haven’t seen…I think it‘s an exciting way to live.”
Today Joel Klein remains...[head of] the education of over 1.1 million of New York’s public students..."revamping the nation’s largest school system has proved a daunting task." “In terms of the things I care about, in terms of the things that changed my own life, public education is at the heart of it--and it’s going to require a major overhaul. I’ve kind of figured that I’ve trained for this my whole life. It’s a big fight, but it’s a fight I really welcome.”
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