Brizard: I am in for the long haul

Jean Claude Brizard (he will answer to J.C.) will take over the leadership of the Chicago Public Schools in the coming weeks –– pending City Council confirmation. Brizard, 47, comes to Chicago from Rochester, New York, where he was superintendent for three years. He also has more than 20 years experience working in the New York City schools, rising from teacher, to principal, to district superintendent. Brizard, who lived in his native Haiti until age 12, says that he’s always wanted to live in Chicago, and insists he is ready for the challenges that Chicago Public Schools will bring to him. He spoke with the Chicago Defender about the new job he is looking forward to.

Chicago Defender: You’re coming in here, an unknown quantity at this point. What do you have to tell Chicago?

Jean Claude Brizard: Two things. One, we know a lot of reform has been pushed on the system. What we want to do is – step one – step back and talk to a lot of people. Look at what has been done and look at how well it has been implemented, because some of those ideas are phenomenal ideas, really great ideas. We want to make sure it’s being done well.

Second, and more importantly, we’re telling people get involved. Work with us, become a part of our work. Join, don’t stand by the sidelines. Don’t become passengers, become crew. Become a part of this. If we’re not opening the door wide enough, tell us. Push it open to become part of the conversation, part of the work. That is the only way we are going to get this done. It will take the entire city, the entire community. I don’t just mean the business community. I’m talking about the Black church, the not-for-profits; we’re talking about everyone who has a stake in this. Because sometimes our parents are too busy trying to make ends meet and don’t have the time to be the kind of support we need. So we need someone else, a surrogate, someone else to get involved with that child. So roll up your sleeves, come work with us, so we can make this, if not the, one of the best districts in America.

CD: You have touted some of the gains that were achieved while you were in Rochester and some of those claims have been questioned. It seems the average tenure for a big city school superintendent is only about three years. Is that enough time to make the changes you would like to see in Chicago?

JCB: The average tenure used to be 18 months, now it is 2.5 years. No, it is not long enough. The magic is to make it work long after someone leaves. If this work becomes imbedded in one individual, it won’t work.

This whole idea that one person is a superman doesn't work. It took an entire community for it to be the way it is, it will take the entire community to bring it back.

That’s one of the reasons I said yes to the job. The leadership understands that is will take a while to turn things around. But I intend to stay to make it work. Even if they kick me out.

CD: News reports in Rochester say that parents were not fans of Jean Claude Brizard. Families here are watching closely. What can you tell them?

JCB: That is absolutely false. There is one guy who claims he represents parents in this city. That is absolutely not true. Because of budget issues, we’ve had some parents complaining about budget cuts. But you and I know that I don’t control that.

CD: Rochester teachers – at least the union – gave you a vote of ‘no confidence’. Of course the teacher’s union in Chicago has heard this. How do you convince them that you’re not an enemy of the teachers?

JCB: Well, there are two ways. One is that one thing I said to Karen (Lewis, president of Chicago Teachers Union) when I spoke to her a few weeks ago. I said, ‘Look, I spent 22 years of my career in New York City and I never had a problem with the union.’ I’ve had difficulties here with Dr. (Adam) Urbanski (president of the Rochester Teacher’s Association). Don’t fool yourself, this came from one person, he’s the one who pushed this. He’s an interesting guy and he’s been around for 30 years.

The one thing I said to Karen, ‘Judge me by my actions not what one or two people are saying about me.’ We met today. I think it was a decent meeting. I think she’ll see that I am a man of my word. She is not going to agree with everything I say. I’m sure we’re going to have disagreements and some of them will be public. But I can tell you that the one thing she’ll always find in me is an honest person, and I will never lie to her. I will tell her what we are trying to do and work as hard as I can to be collaborative and bring her to the table to be part of our planning and conversation. But actions speak very, very, very loud to me. I hope that she will come in and withhold judgment.

CD: We’re looking at a $700 million CPS budget hole. It is not your budget, but you’ll have to live with it and implement it.

JCB: I believe the new board will be the one approving the final budget proposal. Whenever you have these kinds of big issues, you (cannot) make it a cutting exercise. You get your accountants and your folks who are finance people and they make it a cutting exercise. One thing I’ve already learned with the people who are currently at CPS, they really understand the re-prioritizing exercise. You gotta go back to your core, you gotta go back to what you know is important.

Even with the $76 million in cuts (in Rochester), which is paltry compared to what needs to be done in Chicago, we gave ownership to school communities to help us decide what’s important and what is not – keeping what is more important to them. We knew we had some reform initiatives in place. We had some core work that we were doing, and we protected that. Reducing the size of the expenditure, but doing it in a way where you are investing in what you know are core work that needs to be done to improve student achievement. It’s not just cutting across the board 10 to 15 percent.

CD: Rahm Emanuel has said he would like to institute Race to the Top in CPS. What are you thoughts on that?

JCB: I think it is a great, phenomenal idea. The Race to the Top that the president pushed has revolutionized the work across the country. Laws are being changed across the country. People are talking about evaluating principals and teachers. ... It’s changed the conversation in most of the states of America. Even the states like Illinois, that did not get the Race to the Top money, still you see legislation, you see folks talking about this. So it is tremendous. I think designing something for CPS, that will allow principals ... schools as a whole to compete for something, for more resources ... I think is going to be phenomenal.

CD: You are an advocate of charter schools, and they seem to be growing quickly. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be adequate measuring criteria for those schools, and under the guidelines used to measure non-charters, some of them are actually performing worse.

JCB: I like good schools. I don’t care if they are charter, I don’t care if they are regular public schools.

Where you find a good school, the black box (what makes a good school) turns out to be a mystery. It is the quality of the adults in the building and the work they are doing.

Charters across the country have a mixed record, just like public schools. Where you find good vetting processes and good accountability – before you hand the keys over to a group of people to open a charter school – if it is a good vetting process, the charters tend to be better. Same as when you are trying to find a principal to run a school. It is a culture of no excuses. It is a culture where I’m not going to say poverty says you can’t learn. It may make it more difficult. Where you find adults where there are no excuses to getting the job done, you tend to find well-run places whether they be charter or regular public schools.

CD: Do you have a plan to address school closings so that parents here don’t feel left out of the process?

JCB: We closed half the high schools in (Rochester) and you didn’t see the kind of noise or protest or angst that you often find in some of these places. The biggest push back came from an attempt to close two elementary schools in our city. ... This was something that was being pushed to do a massive construction project in the city, one that would look to re-do just about every school in the city.

One thing I’ve found is that no matter how good the school, or bad the school, people often love the building, the particular building, or they have fond memories about the school and they are going to argue about the closure. Which is why I go back to engaging the community on the front end. If you allow the school community to really become invested in the decision, I think you minimize the push back. You’re never going to eliminate it. But the way to minimize it is to make sure you are engaging people early, in a very real way.

I would like to ... create an office or a group of people who are really well connected to the community to have a really robust community and parent engagement process. I don’t know what exists right now in the system. I’ve been asking questions. I haven’t heard the right answers yet. But given the mayor-elect’s push, and my own beliefs … the question is how do you push the question back to the community. This is what we know works, and we know you want to have a good neighborhood school, so how do we marry these two ideas and come up with the best solution? It is going to be, sometimes, pushing it back to the community to come up with the best solutions.

CD: You talked earlier about knowing who the students are in the schools. What do you do to engage those kids?

JCB: It is engagement on multiple levels. One is to make sure they have a voice in the school in terms of representation and talking to adults. Allow leadership, that is critical. The other thing we talk about is curriculum engagement, so what we are teaching and how we are teaching is taught to the kids that we are serving.

One thing that we don’t do well in education is giving kids ownership in terms of knowing what they know and what they don’t know and what they learn and why they are learning it.

Why leave Rochester?

I saw some reports that said I was running away from Rochester. I don’t run away at all. I am in for the long haul. It’s kind of hard to say no to living in a city that you always want to live in.

Copyright 2011 Chicago Defender