[ProgressiveEd] correspondence with Michelle Cahill and Joel Klein on the 3-18 mtg

[Jane Bedell]

Hello all--
I had sent out an e-mail following the 3-18 meeting and got back a reply 
from Joel Klein and Michelle Cahill.  Below is the communication, FYI.
-Jane
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Friday, March 21, 2003 11:44 AM -0500
From: Cahill Michele <MCahill@nycboe.net>
To: Jane Bedell <jb679@columbia.edu>
Subject: RE: f/u from a parent who attended the forum at LaGuardia HS 
3-18-03
Dear Ms. Bedell,
Thanks so much for writing.  You raise important issues for small
schools and new schools that Liz Sciabarra, the head of our new Office
of New School Development, and I need to address.  I also appreciate
your words of encouragement regarding our community engagement meetings.
Please stay in touch as Children First unfolds and feel free to write
about other issues that you think are important.
Michele Cahill
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 6:19 PM -0500
From: "Klein Joel I." <JKlein@nycboe.net>
To: Jane Bedell <jb679@columbia.edu>
Subject: RE: f/u on last night's forum at LaGuardia H.S.
Thank you for your kind and helpful email.  Sincerely, Joel Klein
-----Original Message-----
From: Jane Bedell [mailto:jb679@columbia.edu]
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 11:33 AM
To: Cahill Michele
Subject: f/u from a parent who attended the forum at LaGuardia HS
3-18-03
Hello--
I had sent this to the other speakers and somehow neglected to send it
to
you (oh, the perils of that "send" button).  Anyway, for what it's
worth:
=============================================================
Dear Joel Klein, Diana Lam, Shelley Harwayne and Michelle Cahill-
I attended last night's forum at LaGuardia High School and wanted to
give
you some feedback.  I am a parent of a 6 year old first grader at
Central
Park East-2 in District 4 (who had previously attended our zoned school,
P.S. 95 in District 10 in the Bronx).
I was grateful to see you all, in real life, stating your observations,
conclusions and plans for the future.  Thank you for being willing to
stand
up before an impassioned and opinionated group of parents, family
members
and community members.
While so many things still seem so unclear, I left the meeting feeling
that
this was still a work in progress, that you were listening, and that you
answered our questions honestly.  (In particular, I was struck by Mr.
Klein's answer to the woman who asked about overcrowding, which was
refreshingly honest and blunt while being enormously respectful of what
we
know:  that overcrowding continues to be one of the most crucial aspects
of
the failure to deliver good educational opportunities to our children.)
I urge you to continue to reach out to communicate with us in as many
ways
as possible.  I have recently led my own (small) organization through a
fairly massive set of changes and I know that sometimes communicating
about
the change takes away precious time that could be spent implementing the
change, but I've come to understand how crucial it is to have the top
leadership involved -- in authentic ways -- in the communications
process.
I look forward to working with Ms. Harwayne and her staff.  There are
many
unresolved issues for the small schools.  These include: the issue of
granting of school status to existing programs, evaluating our
curriculums
(some of which are markedly similar to the standard curriculum), making
decisions about the waiver applications, and working with us on
developing
evaluation processes for students and schools which reflect the
complexity
of human development and learning.  As you know, we are proposing that
in
each region there be one or more instructional supervisor responsible
for
the small, progressive schools in that region.  We believe that this
will
allow us to develop successfully and to continue to be a model for
innovation and quality education.
Again, thank you for hosting the forum.
Sincerely,
Jane Bedell
3428 Giles Place
Bronx, NY  10463
718/ 548-6142
jb679@columbia.edu
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