Our final guest
speaker of the Master of Art's in Educational Leadership and Societal Change Distinguished Speaker’s Series at Soka University of America flew in
from New York City. Eric Nadelstern is
the writer of 10 Lessons from New York
City Schools: What Really Works to Improve Education and current Professor of
Practice in Educational Leadership at Teachers College. Former Deputy Chancellor of the Division of
School Support and Instruction in New York, he developed a creative reform
effort called the Autonomy Zone where schools are given the freedom to choose
their own methodologies. With thirty
plus years of experience, Eric had several successes and mistakes to
share.
On the first day,
Eric talked about his parents who were Holocaust survivors and how he had grown
up in a Jewish hub of the city. His
career started out as a speech and ESL teacher during President Nixon’s
administration. He had taught eight
years at the oldest high school in the country, Marshalltown. Early in his career, he became disillusioned
with the New York City Department of Education and their management of
schools. Seeking to make a difference,
he opened up his own school, International High School, before leaving in 2000
to become the New York City’s Deputy Chancellor. In hearing his story and how he talked about
education reform, I got an immediate sense that Eric was a no-nonsense type of
person who could talk about the business of education really well. His
leadership style was pragmatic and he made decisions based on what he thought
would have the most impact for student success even if it meant closing down
schools or firing staff. Throughout our
discussions, I had a hard time figuring out where to place him. Did he care about students? Yes definitely. But was his tactics harsh? Perhaps. I kept trying to figure out where his values
lied and kept asking questions about it.
In Eric’s second
session, we were asked to design our own Out-of-the-Box School. Eric wanted to know, Can failed schools reinvent themselves? My group designed an outdoor wilderness school
called the Center of Creative Coexistence for at-risk youth. Since our school was so out of the box (out
of your mind!), we had to think about what classrooms would look like, whether
they were on the center or on the periphery, and if the school would be coed or
one gender. Eric immediately liked the
direction of our school and asked about disciplinary practices as well as
whether coed or one gender education really made a difference. Over and over, Eric challenged us to think
about the implementation piece of educational reform and shared stories that
showed reform never goes as planned.
Eric Nadelstern’s 10 Lessons
from New York City Schools
- Invest in leadership
- Devolve resources, authority, and responsibility at your school
- Make everyone responsible for student performance
- Reward success, enact consequences
- Create small schools
- Reduce teacher load
- Focus relentlessly on student learning
- Partner with a private/non-profit sector
- Reform the central office
- Be Bold
Toward the end of
our time with Eric, we started to discuss educational reform and the purpose it
should serve. We went into a discussion
about human nature: whether humans are prone to act in their own self-interest
or if they have an altruistic nature that can reign supreme? Eric believed in the former, saying, “unless
we are actively thinking about this, then we will revert back to tribalism.” Regardless of whether I agreed, I felt that Eric's personal and professional experiences had all taught us key lessons for life and for our careers. One of my classmates ended the discussion with a quotation from the founder of Soka University of America, Daisaku Ikeda: “For what purpose
should one cultivate wisdom? May you always ask yourself this question.” Applying this question to large scale reform, I feel policymakers should always ask for what purpose should a policy serve. If they answer, "the happiness of the learner," then we are moving in a better direction than before.
As Eric departed and as we bid farewell to the three and half week Distinguished Speaker's Series, I reflected on what I had learned from each educational leader: the Heart-Led Leader and former Columbine High School Principal, Frank DeAngelis; the Data-Driven Leader and National Principal of the Year, Jayne Ellspermann; the Political Leader and former Assistant Secretary of Education, Thelma Melendez; the Community Leader and former Board member of Chicago Public Schools, Carlos Azcoitia; the Professional Leader and founder of Learning Forward, Stephanie Hirsh; and finally, the Pragmatic Leader and former Deputy Chancellor of New York City Schools, Eric Nadelstern. Each had come from a unique background and each had a different story to share, but their commitment to education was uniform. I truly believe the course and all the speakers will forever remain etched into my educational memory.