Joel Klein

I've spent a fair amount there in the last couple of years.

So 25 years ago, there were a number of schools chancellors who were national figures, Joel Klein in New York City, Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., etc.

And then because ed reform has sort of lost its luster, we sort of lost patience with it.

Well, a couple of years ago, three years ago, I think, a guy named Mike Miles was put in charge of Houston, which is ironic because Houston 20, 30 years ago was a shining star of ed reform, and then it just fell apart, and it got taken over by the state.

having kudos from my colleagues in the faculty club is way, way, way down.

You spent years in New York City working in the public school system there when Bloomberg was mayor, Joe Klein was director, superintendent.

What

did you

So Larry Summers was president of Harvard.

He was living in Elmwood, the president's residence over here.

And he invited me to dinner because Joel Klein was coming to dinner.

And

But they said it worked so well.

And, uh, and Joel Klein, who was the chancellor at the time, said, "Okay, well, if you wanna scale it up, let's do it in 10 or 14, 15 more schools."

Hmm.

So we got 14 or 15 more schools, and we were ready to go and, and, uh, all...

I want the young scholars to take on those kinds of risk.

To do something where you get up every morning and your name might be in the newspaper in a very bad way, three or four y- three or four times a day and people will impugn your motives and say, you know... [laughs] Someone was picketing me outside the DOE one day.

I was walking back from lunch, uh, with, uh, with, uh, Joel Klein and they said, "Roland Fryer is the worst thing for Black people since the Tuskegee experiments."

Jesus.