Joel Klein, Controversial as Chancellor of NYC Department of Education, Offers Lessons on Fixing Education

Joel Klein discusses his tenure as Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Appointed by mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002, Klein’s background as a lawyer from outside the education establishment made him a controversial choice for the job. In Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools, Klein writes about his eight-year mission of improvement: demanding accountability, eliminating political favoritism, and battling a teachers union that, according to Klein, was determined to protect a status quo.