Throughout his distinguished career in public education, New York City Public Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew has made it a point that every child has equal educational opportunities.
Extending such equality throughout the New York City schools will be certainly be a massive undertaking -- for more than 1,100 schools and over 1 million students fall under Crew's jurisdiction.
And with a budget larger than 125 nations and a total school security force that ranks as the 11th largest police force in the nation, casual observers might think Crew was the mayor of New York and not its schools chancellor.
But Crew is indeed an expert in the field of education, and he gave a lecture last night in Dartmouth Hall describing the problems he sees with urban education and ways in which he feels they can be addressed.
Just moments after arriving on campus yesterday afternoon, Crew was in the 1930s Room of Rockefeller Center sipping on mint tea and offering his views on education issues from literacy to overcrowding in schools. Crew, who replaced Ramon Cortines as New York City schools chancellor in Oct. 1995, admitted longevity has been a problem with his position.
New York "changes chancellors more than the weather changes," Crew said. But he added, "I am going to be there for a while."
One of the largest problems Crew said he faces in his job is the maintaining a "steady and consistent voice of what we are going to do and how we are going to do it," he said.
In order to continue improvements in the city's schools, Crew has begun to implement a variety of measures to promote student achievement.
Crew said his system is "devoting focused attention" to literacy problems. Some of the reforms planned include expanding the school day to surround young students in a "literature-rich world."
The infusion of technology and arts into schools is also important to Crew's view of improving the city's schools. "These have been major requirements of a new world order that all young people should be exposed to," he said.
Crew said he believes no standards schools set are unattainable by children. He said it is just a matter of the school system being able to provide the support network for all students to reach the higher standards.
However, it has not been easy for Crew to implement all these changes. One problem the city faces is the overcrowding of the schools. "We have more students than we do available seats," he said.
Crew said New York's mayor, governor and city council have all committed to getting additional school seats. He also said the complex environment of New York also complicates matter.
When asked about the small percentage of students from New York City public schools attending four-year colleges or universities, Crew said the attractiveness of the New York city and state schools coupled with the increasing scarcity of financial aid were contributing factors.
Crew said he hopes to see the number of students at institutions of higher learning increase as graduation rates in the city and the number of students taking and passing state-required achievement tests increases.
Crew talked about the ways universities could promote education as a profession. Providing students interested in education with a more interactive environment that will truly involve them in the classrooms they will inherit would be helpful, he said.
Crew graduated from Babson College near Boston in 1972 with a degree in Management and Economics. While a student there, Crew spent time at a small private school where he first discovered his interest in education.
During his time at Babson, the Boston public school system had just undergone desegregation and some of the students Crew helped coach and teach at the school were part of the METCO program -- a program that bussed children from the city to the suburbs to attend school.
Crew said that such a system of education made no sense.
"It was just crazy," he said, "to have to leave one's neighborhood to go to school elsewhere because they couldn't get a good enough education."
He said the primary goal in life has been to help students see that their own efforts can result in a better performance.
"I believed for a long time education was a chosen path for me," he said.
Crew received his Master's Degree in Urban Education in 1973 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
