When hizzoner Michael Bloomberg gained control of Gotham's crippled school system, many had high hopes. Perhaps at last New York City would muster the strength to free itself from the establishment monopoly over education reform, curriculum, and pedagogy--and the innumerable underperforming schools it has created. Instead, Bloomberg and his chosen schools chancellor, Joel Klein, have moved in the opposite direction, embracing mandatory reading and math curricula rooted in the old-style progressive education ideology that created many of these problems in the first place. In their defense, Klein said, "I don't believe curriculums [sic] are the key to education. I believe teachers are." Well, yes. But teachers, even great ones, have to teach something. In New York, it's clearer with every passing day that the something they're teaching is the wrong thing.
"New York's new approach," by James Traub, New York Times, August 3, 2003
"One curriculum, many skeptics," by Mike McIntire, New York Times, August 6, 2003