Jean-Claude Brizard -- or “JC,” as Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel
calls him -- has been the talk of the town this week, but maybe what's
most telling is what is not being said. Namely, his record in New York
City, where he has spent most of his career thus far. Brizard resigned from his post as head of the Rochester, N.Y. school system and is now poised to take over as the new Chicago Public Schools CEO, to the dismay of the Chicago Teachers Union.
So far, he’s been publically slammed by teachers and parents in Rochester, N.Y. and Brizard-related media reports here as well as there have been lukewarm at best. Controversial already, are the facts and figures that have been touted in Brizard's favor. Graduation rates (a major problem in both cities) are said to have gone up under Brizard’s leadership. But, to be sure, Brizard was only in Rochester for three years --not long enough to have seen through an entire graduating classes’ four-year high school development. A Sun-Times editorial calls his record exaggerated, while the Tribune painted an unflattering picture of his leadership in Rochester, highlighted by an overwhelming confidence vote of "no" by the Rochester Teachers' Association.
But
let’s remember that the majority of his education career has been spent in New York
City, where he worked for more than two decades serving as a teacher, high school
principal and regional superintendent. And yes, the numbers do show that
graduation rates, with Brizard there, did go up by 13 percent. The
Sun-Times points out, “That jump is remarkable, though we’re sure Brizard
would acknowledge that many others had a hand in that achievement.” As
for what New York City thinks, the New York Times ran a brief AP story, while the Gotham Gazette and the Gotham Schools
organization both surprisingly had little to say about his record in
the Big Apple.
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You're right. Gotham Gazette did not have much to say about his record. Since mayoral control came in this is a very hierarchical school system; people do not express differences of opinion with the Bloomberg line on education. That would put Brizard squarely in the so-called reform camp, favoring charter schools, testing and so on.
Unlike many people in the Department of Ed, though, Brizard did have extensive teaching experience, came out of the city schools rather than the Ivy League and is black (Haitian American).
My one encounter with him was an interview for a story I wrote about vocational education. The city was then saying it wanted to improve vocational ed programs, something that Brizard seemed to support -- he had taught at a largely vocational high school -- but as far as I know that never really happened.
Brizard was then head of high schools for the city, a job that had long been vacant. The Bloomberg administration had already launched its program of shutting down large high schools it considered failing and opening small public and charter schools in their stead. This continued under Brizard but was certainly not, for better or worse, his idea.
The sharp rise in high school graduation rates is controversial -- people agree they've gone up but question whether they've gone up that much. Again though I think that rise both predates Brizard and has gone on after him.
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