Harrison's Louis N. Wool Named New York State School Superintendent of the Year

Harrison is about a 35 minute drive north of New York City. Harrison is considered by the New York educational powers-that-be a "low need" school district -- in that there is no abject poverty. But unlike other Westchester turbo towns like Scarsdale, Bronxville, Armonk, Rye and Chappaqua, Harrison is economically diverse. There are pockets of extreme wealth (at least before last year's economic melt down), there's a substantial working class population in parts of town, a large fixed-income, senior citizen population, and a growing number of Hispanic families. Harrison is, in effect, not one town -- but a conglomeration of about 4 or 5 distinct communities.

Like many before me, my wife and I sojourned from Manhattan to the burbs 3 months after my first daughter was born in 1992. Harrison seemed like a healthy community -- not too homogeneous or material -- a good community with some economic diversity. As for the schools, I was told that the elementary school where I moved was good -- and the middle school had just won a Department of Education award -- and the high school was okay but needed work.

Shortly after moving to Harrison, I was surprised to learn that school budgets put to an annual vote routinely failed to pass This mystified me. Surely there were enough residents in town who cared about and were vested in the public schools to support the school budgets. What I quickly learned was that there was little coherent community engagement surrounding the schools -- and what engagement there was oftentimes focused on individual needs, desires and perceived entitlements. The school system serving about 3,500 kids was not living up to its potential. For many years the school board was divided. Some board members were truly interested in educating kids, others were more interested fulfilling a patronage mill or a power trip. And school tax dollars were being spent without any underlying plan or rationale.

Out of frustration I ran for a seat on the board of education in 2002 -- and along with my board colleagues that year we installed a smart, wily, visionary and brave administrator, Louis Wool, as superintendent -- who basically proceeded to upend many of the mores, practices and actions that plagued the school district. Most strikingly -- Lou attacked a culture inside the school system that by default personified the soft bigotry of low expectations. He stripped away reams of pernicious tracking practices that oftentimes blocked late bloomers from exposure to rigorous coursework in the high school (rigid tracking practices had started in early middle school). His battles to reform the school system have been heroic and often at great personal cost.

Lou, in a unique collaboration with the teacher's union, developed a rigorous teacher evaluation program so that tenure actually began to mean something. One can argue the merits and demerits of the state law granting tenure to teachers after 3 years, but at least we now, as a board of education, representing our community, have a much better handle on which new teaching hires are likely to be lifelong great educators. Those who show that great potential get tenure.

The reforms wrought by Lou Wool in Harrison are more or less similar to the reforms now being touted nationally in the "Race to the Top" and other ideas and nostrums emanating from Washington and state capitols. The only way the public education system in this country will survive and thrive is to instill a culture of accountability in school district operations -- and have as a working philosophy the mores guiding the Harrison School district: Equity, Access, Rigor and Adaptability.

I am gratified that the superintendents in New York State have chosen to recognize Lou Wool for his work on behalf of my community.

Here's a link to the New York State Council of School Superintendent's announcement:

http://bit.ly/6zOSmp.

Feld vs Gillibrand??

Just two weeks ago I blogged on a Westchester hyperlocal that Liz Feld was one of the winners coming out of the Rob Astorino defeat of Andy Spano in Westchester:

http://bit.ly/3kHyaJ

But I thought that Feld would run a rematch against 25 year incumbant Suzi Oppenheimer -- and in the absence of an Obama election coat-tail -- and the abhorence of the NYS Senate by most New Yorkers -- that Feld stood an excellent chance of taking down Oppenheimer in 2010. But with her statement that she's considering a run for the US Senate against Kirstin Gillibrand, Feld is clearly feeling her oats -- and perhaps believes that the Astorino win in Westchester can carry her to DC.

Although Gillibrand' spolll numbers are low, no one should ever count her out of anything -- she's smart, savvy and resilient. There's not a huge difference between Feld and Gillibrand ideologically -- and while Republicans are likely to make inroads in House and Senate races in 2010 -- Gillbrand will be tough to beat -- particularly when you paint whatever Republican runs in New York with the broad brush of the national GOP -- which is appaently being lead by wackos like Palin, Bachmann, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/11/taking-on-gillibrand.html#ixzz0XufliORW

As for the rumor that former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford may mount a primary bid for Gillibrand's seat -- I find that absurd. Any primary opposition to Gillibrand will likely come from her left flank -- and Ford -- who just barely lost a US Senate race in Tennessee in 2006 -- is more in sync with her than not ideologically (right now Ford heads the centrist Democratic Leadership Council). Obama and Schumer will ensure that Ford doesn't make the run. But I think the speculation about it is not serious anyway.

Reports that Bill Thompson may consider a primary challenge to Gillibrand may actually have more legs -- and is a much more substantial threat to Gillibrand. Thompson came surprisingly close to defeating Mayor Bloomberg -- but that vote, frankly was less of a vote for Thompson than a vote against Bloomberg's abrogation of term limits. But if Thompson were to challenge Gillibrand in a primary -- he'd have strength where Gillibrand is weak -- especially in NYC. Yet Thompson may opt instead to primary Tom DiNapoli for State Comptroller - and Thompson would likely easily defeat DiNapoli, who was appointed to his job by the State Legislature and has a very weak political base.

The Demise of the Journal News

For months if not a year or two --I've been seeking an intelligent online source of news about government, politics and business in Westchester County. I've been bewildered at the lack of real, substantive news outlets in the 'burbs. The primary countywide news outlet -- is the Journal News run by Gannett. Over the past decade or more, the Journal News has paired down its news gathering and reporting capabilities and effort. And within the past two years, this decline has picked up speed. In the last local election cycle culminating with the local elections in November -- there was pathetically little coverage of local races. In my town, Harrison, the only source of information about the mayoral campaign came from campaign mailings. Nowhere did I find any kind of analysis or digging into issues, claims, charges, allegations, political posturings, etc... The best one could do was read between the lines. The apparently shocking result in the county executive upset of Rob Astorino over 3-term incumbant Andy Spano -- may or may not have been shocking if there was any kind of analysis or coverage of the race. Save commentary from a few like Phil Reisman -- no real issues were brought to bare on this race -- other than property taxes. As an aside, if Rob Astorino actually won the race because the electorate believed that he'd reduce property taxes markedly, then his victory was based on false pretenses. County Exec Elect Astorino will be able to wield a thimble on that score. The bulk of county government serves as a conduit for state and federally mandated programs. And, moreover, in most towns and communities in Westchester, the county portion of the property tax barely makes it to 20%.

I hope to help launch an effort to create, from the ground up, a real, vibrant, vital, news and analysis site for all that goes on here in Westchester: politics, government (including school district governance), culture and the arts (not interested in recipes and pilates...) business -- with more scope and depth than offered by the Westchester County Business Journal. I don't want this to be a vanity publication like the Martinelli papers used to be -- or like the Westchester Guardian is. I would also like to create linkages to hyperhyperlocals -- such as the terrific scarsdale hyperlocal, www.scarsdale10583.com. I'm aware of some other hyperlocals out there such as the Croton Blog, the Larchmont Gazzette, The Loop, All things Armonk, the Yonkers Tribune. And AOL is bringing it's franchise, the Patch, to a number of Westchester towns.

I want to see a venue for analysis and criticism of local media -- and it's existing scope of coverage.

But most of all -- I want to ultimate have this migrate to a real, up-and-running, full blown website -- ala the Huffington Post.

More coming.