NY Times Fails To Hold Klein Accountable Today

The NY Times conducted an "interview" with outgoing NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein.

They threw him softball after softball, never pressed him on the jive he said, and missed an opportunity to REALLY look at the Klein tenure.

To wit, he should have been asked:

1. How can you call your tenure as chancellor a success when you privilege ONLY test scores as a measure of success and student test scores are LOWER as you leave than before you came in and the achievement gap between white and Asian students and black and Hispanic students is LARGER than ever?

2. How can you call your Children First reforms a success when many of the small schools you opened at the beginning of your tenure are being closed at the end of your tenure (and many more will be closed after you are gone)?

3. No independent auditor has looked at the graduation rates you are hawking as proof positive of your success as chancellor. Why won't you open the books and let an independent auditor take a look at just how you increased the graduation rates (credit recovery program, independent study classes, etc.)?

4. You were one of the most divisive people to work in NYC government since the generally reviled Saint Rudy of 9/11. How is it that somebody who can't get along with people and has the socio-emotional skills of a misanthrope got to run a school system that has as its intent not only to educate children but to socialize them to be decent human beings? (It's interesting that some of the most misanthropic and/or maladjusted people in public life - Klein, Rhee, Christie, Gates, Bloomberg - are the vanguard of the "education reform movement.")

Those are the four questions I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure you out there in the blogosphere can think of some more.

But instead of asking these questions, the Times asked Klien where to get the best pizza in NYC.

A missed opportunity at holding Klein accountable for the mess he leaves in place.

Klein lamented that he wasn't MORE disruptive as chancellor.

That tells you everything you need to know about Klein.

A destructive, evil man with only the aggrandizement of his own ego and the enrichment of himself and his ed deform cronies as his sole concern.