According to Politico, the Columbia University's Double Discovery Center will be giving Ex Chancellor Joel Klein their highest award, the James Shenton Award. One would think that such an award would be given to only those who made a difference for public education of underprivileged students. However, the truth is under Chancellor Joel Klein, the income/racial academic income gap actually widened. His claims of academic excellence was all "smoke and mirrors: and even Mayor Bloomberg canned him when the truth was picked up by the media. Far from being a top educator, Joel Klein did more harm and little good when it came to really serving underprivileged students.
Under Chancellor Joel Klein, class sizes increased, highly experienced teachers were cast aside for clueless "newbies" and school budgets were siphoned to feed the ever growing Central Bureaucracy at the DOE. Worse, was the destruction of the large neighborhood high schools by dumping "high needs" students into the schoolsto force them to fail and close Read the New Yorker article at what Joel Klein did to Jamaica High School. Moreover, his disrespect for teachers and ignoring community concerns are legendary. Finally, his support of Charter schools and co-locating them in public schools were both morally and economically wrong for the public school students, especially the disadvantaged.
To remind people of the destructive Klein policies read his legacy Here.