Rudy Crew is breaking the mold: from New York City to Miami, he is one of the most highly regarded--and highly paid--superintendents in the country.

Rudy Crew is breaking the mold: from New York City to Miami, he is one of the most highly regarded--and highly paid--superintendents in the country. The summer of 2004 saw two high-profile and highly anticipated arrivals in Miami--Shaquille O'Neal to the struggling Miami Heat The Miami Heat (known as the HEAT [in all capital letters] on official team publications) are a professional basketball team based in Miami, Florida, United States. They play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). basketball team and Rudy Crew Rudolph F. "Rudy" Crew is the superintendent of schools of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Appointed to the post in 2004, he previously was the executive director of the University of Washington's Institute for K-12 Leadership. to the beleaguered be��lea��guer?tr.v. be��lea��guered, be��lea��guer��ing, be��lea��guers1. To harass; beset: We are beleaguered by problems.2. To surround with troops; besiege. Miami-Dade school district. While part in restoring the Heat to basketball Crew--who occupies a ninth-floor office in downtown Miami Downtown Miami is the central business district of Miami-Dade County and Miami, Florida. Brickell Avenue/Biscayne Boulevard is the main north-south road in downtown, and Flagler Street is the main east-west road in the Central Business District. not far from the American Airlines American AirlinesMajor U.S. airline. American was created through a merger of several smaller U.S. airlines and incorporated in 1934. It continued to buy the routes of other airlines, becoming an international carrier in the 1970s; its routes include South America, the Arena--has hit the ground running as well, promptly taking over 39 failing schools and pursuing a multi-billion dollar capital expansion that would build another 47 over the next five years. Crew made a name for himself as the "other" Rudy in New York City New York City:see New York, city. New York CityCity (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. , where he served under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani from 1995-1999 as chancellor of the nation's largest public school system. After coming into well-publicized conflict with his boss, Crew left his post and school administration for two think tanks--first as executive director of the Institute of K-12 Leadership and then as director of district reform initiatives for the Stupski Foundation. Crew's return to the urban superintendent's office set off a competition among St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Miami and when all the had finished Crew had broken new ground--and stirred up some controversy--with a six-year contract, which, including home, car, and bonus considerations, could average almost $500,000 annually. He has also remained in the national spotlight, and this summer was featured at the Fordham Principals' Institute in New York City and the Harvard Principals' Center Summer Institute in Cambridge, Mass., as well as the National Academies Foundation in San Diego San Diego(săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. . DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION sat down with Rudy Crew in his Miami office and found that his focus is as much on the big picture in education as on the details of his new position. Why did you decide to return to a superintendency Su`per`in`tend´en`cyn. 1. The act of superintending; superintendence. at this point in your career, and how did you choose Miami? I came back into the superintendency largely because it's the best match, challenge, and satisfaction I can find in my career. The only other thing that probably rivals that would be my stint as a high school principal. I truly enjoy being in an environment where the energy and the tensions of raising children and educating them are what you work through. The challenge here was particularly interesting, largely because the system is much along the lines of a New York City in terms of size. It is in many respects, as people euphemistically eu��phe��mism?n.The act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive: "Euphemisms such as 'slumber room' . . . refer to it, "New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of South." So I knew I would be in a culture of issues and people that would resonate res��o��nate?v. res��o��nat��ed, res��o��nat��ing, res��o��natesv.intr.1. To exhibit or produce resonance or resonant effects.2. with the kinds of things that I was about in New York City. And the kind of work that was needed here instructionally, the issues related to low-performing schools, and the need for building an infrastructure matched very much the work that I was doing in New York City. How much do you think you were regarded as an educational star as these major school districts were competing for your services? I don't think of myself or of that time frame as being driven by any stardom star��dom?n.1. The status of a performer or entertainer acknowledged as a star.2. Star performers considered as a group. . I think people are really hungry for leadership. That leadership need is pushing communities into a more frenzied look at the skills and the skill sets that various people bring to the table. There aren't that many people who have made their market niche large urban school systems, from their days of being a teacher all the way up to being a superintendent. Still, that competition resulted in an unprecedented salary and benefits, and you've talked in the past about "breaking the mold" of what administrators get paid. Are you leading by example? We shouldn't underestimate that value of this kind of leadership. This is public servancy with highly developed skills. This is as critical a job and it requires some of the same skill sets as it takes to run a multi-national corporation. The profit and loss is great. The size of these entities rivals every bit the size of Fortune 500 companies, and the salaries therefore have to be commensurate. I just don't see any place where the productivity requirements and the salary requirements should be out of alignment. There's an enormous amount that is going to be asked of me and of this team by this community. So now that you've gotten to know the culture in Miami-Dade for more than a year, what's stood out for you? This is a community of very, very high wealth on one hand and dense poverty on the other. It's what I think of almost as "a tale of two cities A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the second historical novel by Charles Dickens. The plot centres on the years leading up to the French Revolution and culminates in the Jacobin Reign of Terror. ." And the challenge becomes, "Is there a way to use education as the great equalizer that everyone has touted it to be?" I find that the community is very anxious to develop its public school system, as it is to develop its economic engines. The growth factors here are enormous. The housing starts are going through the roof. The emergence of new people coming into Miami is unparalleled. I also think this is a really fascinating environment. It's the gateway to Latin America Latin America,the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. . It offers a tremendous perch from which to both see and engage in the lives of people who are largely immigrant populations of families and children from every place in the Caribbean, Central and South America South America,fourth largest continent (1991 est. pop. 299,150,000), c.6,880,000 sq mi (17,819,000 sq km), the southern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . You find that that mix is particularly enriching. And there are so many opportunities to foreshadow fore��shad��ow?tr.v. fore��shad��owed, fore��shad��ow��ing, fore��shad��owsTo present an indication or a suggestion of beforehand; presage.fore��shad how the country as a whole begins to deals with these issues of families and children; communities being built; languages being enriched; and people's lives being added to as a function of going to the public school system. On a more concrete level, how can your district become a model for others around the country? Everybody's got to try to figure out the conundrum conundrumA problem with no satisfactory solution; a dilemma of low-performing schools. Everybody's got to try to figure out how to get children who are in all corners of the city and the community to higher levels of literacy. I think we've got an opportunity to do these things "These Things" is an EP by She Wants Revenge, released in 2005 by Perfect Kiss, a subsidiary of Geffen Records. Music VideoThe music video stars Shirley Manson, lead singer of the band Garbage. Track Listing1. "These Things [Radio Edit]" - 3:172. here largely because we have large numbers of children who have this need. Another issue is the whole business of the infrastructure of the city and the infrastructure of the school system. Both of these things are emerging, the city faster and with greater planned growth, so we had to catch up. Our engine of development for school space, student stations, new schools, and new construction had to literally be put together very quickly to try to catch up to the market of this growing metropolitan community. You say you can't afford not to make a major capital expansion of schools, but how much does a plan like this cost, and how do you pay for it? I don't want to put a number on it because it always changes, but it will cost several billion dollars. We have about two years worth of that money as a part of the state's capital facilities budget, but what we need to do is talk about some sort of financing mechanism for the rest of those years. The way to think about this is the building of a city. This is just not about the building of some schools. And I think that what we're doing in Miami is simply making ourselves part of the campaign for the rebuilding of Miami, and that is a different frame of reference. What we've done here is to add the dimension of education to that conversation so that it's not an afterthought af��ter��thought?n.An idea, response, or explanation that occurs to one after an event or decision.afterthoughtNoun1. and so that people get the sense that this is about the vibrancy of all of the community, the children in the community, adults in the community, and adult learning in the community. You also sought--and received--permission this year to take over 39 underperforming schools right away, What's been the upshot so far? The results have been compelling. All 39 schools except one made substantial academic gains over the course of the year. The state of Florida designates schools "A" through "F." We started with nine "F" schools and reduced that to three. We ended up with 10 percent more students in these 39 schools scoring "Level 3" (which represents reading at grade level) and above. That's the highest gain in the state. Third grade is the grade in Florida where if you have not mastered the state's FCAT FCAT Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (statewide standardized test for Florida school children), you are retained. In the previous year, the number at these schools was close to 9,000 third graders being retained, and that number is now down to a little bit over 5,000. It's dangerous to suggest that this is exactly because of this one intervention. But by our taking on these 39 schools, the clarion call clarion callNounstrong encouragement to do something went out for effective schools and effective leadership and focused, effective teaching and really examining whether children are learning. The school system was declaring itself and what it does in a very bold, aggressive statement of goals. It put a lot of risk into the game, which ultimately has the effect of either galvanizing galvanizing,process of coating a metal, usually iron or steel, with a protective covering of zinc. Galvanized iron is prepared either by dipping iron, from which rust has been removed by the action of sulfuric acid, into molten zinc so that a thin layer of the zinc people or scaring them to death. Nobody knew what the data would reveal. What have been the pros and cons pros and consNoun, plthe advantages and disadvantages of a situation [Latin pro for + con(tra) against] of coming to town as an outsider? There's a very high set of expectations, partly borne out of the fact that I got a big salary, partly borne out of the fact that I'm from New York, partly borne out of the fact that I came with a national reputation. So everybody tries to figure out: What are we going to get this guy to demonstrate that he can do? How many home runs do we count before we say he's a bona fide [Latin, In good faith.] Honest; genuine; actual; authentic; acting without the intention of defrauding.A bona fide purchaser is one who purchases property for a valuable consideration that is inducement for entering into a contract and without suspicion of being home run hitter? I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed)"Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. how that works here, and I don't preoccupy pre��oc��cu��py?tr.v. pre��oc��cu��pied, pre��oc��cu��py��ing, pre��oc��cu��pies1. To occupy completely the mind or attention of; engross. See Synonyms at monopolize.2. myself with it. I do my very best here. I know why I came. I know what I think I can do, and I'm just going to go about the business of doing it. There's also a degree of cynicism toward people coming from the outside and coming from another major urban center. One of the tensions in coming from a big city like New York is: "Do you know it all? Do you have the Holy Grail Holy Grail:see Grail, Holy. A very desired object or outcome that borders on a sacred quest. There are several Holy Grails in the computer business. , or are you willing to learn from us as well as contribute what we are trying to do here?" I think I've done a fairly decent job of hitting the ground running and trying to learn where people have been. My critics would say I'm harsh, I'm too pushy--maybe that some of that New York pushiness push��y?adj. push��i��er, push��i��estDisagreeably aggressive or forward.pushi��ly adv. that everyone always talks about is in evidence too much of the time. But this is a time to test. I don't think you get a long period of time to be new, to learn the culture, or to know enough about what to change and how to change it. Speaking of New York, what do you think you did well--and not so well--during your time there, and how does your record translate to your job here? I think that there were a fair number of initiatives in New York that bore fruit. We were growing New York City, as we are Miami. Similarly, we were behind the eight ball in having to develop the necessary seats to keep up with that growth. We were behind in New York City by about 20,000 seats. In Miami, we were behind as well, and the only way to hurry and catch up was to add 18,000 seats to schools. The relationship I had with Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani (born May 28, 1944) is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from the state of New York. Formerly Mayor of New York City, Giuliani is currently seeking the Republican nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election. in New York City for the most part, with the exception of those latter years, was a very good one, and it actually ended up stabilizing the school system at a time when frankly it had been highly, highly destabilized. There were clearly some downsides. You know, I got fired. Rudy and I ran afoul of a��foul of?prep.1. In or into collision, entanglement, or conflict with.2. Up against; in trouble with: ran afoul of the law.each other. In a very strong mayoral city like New York, the mayor rules, period. Punto. End of story. So if you don't get along with the mayor, you're done. It's different here in Miami, because first of all, you're not answering to the mayor, but second of all, it's a different governance structure here. The local municipalities here each have a mayor. I share with them, we can communicate together, and we're all equals in many respects. We're all public servants who are trying to advance the cause of a county. So what insights from your experience in New York have you brought with you? One of the lessons I learned is that you need to reflect while you're in the job, not so much after you're out of the job. This is a piece of artwork that you need to step back from and constantly assess. Are you comfortable with the coloration col��or��a��tion?n.1. Arrangement of colors.2. The sum of the beliefs or principles of a person, group, or institution. ? Are you comfortable with the gauge? Does it still resonate with you? Does the picture in your mind still have value? I don't always like what I see, but when I take the step back, I actually feel refreshed in the process. And I didn't do that in New York. A second lesson for me is that there's enormous value in really tapping into the existing culture. There's smarts there. There's a genius that's there. It's in our Haitian parents. It's in our Hispanic immigrant parents. It's in our poor parents. It's in our rich parents. But you have to tap that genius. You have to go in and unlock that conversation that they're willing to have with you. If you really listen, you'll find that the innovation will grow out of that. It won't be something that you read in a textbook or get out of a trade journal. Frankly, you'll get it out of listening to the journey that these people have been taking. I think you really come away with a very different understanding of what it means to redesign schools. I feel wiser in this job now, more comfortable in knowing what I know and equally comfortable in seeking answers to the things that I don't know. You have a unique vantage point. When you were chancellor in New York City, there was no NCLB NCLB No Child Left Behind (US education initiative). When you returned to the superintendent's office here, NCLB was in place for almost three years. How much have you noticed the difference? Slightly, but not in a major way because the conversation about assessment--which is really what No Child Left Behind is all about--has been going on in this country for the last decade-and-a-half. It wasn't until NCLB came out that it solidified a particular policy viewpoint that assessment should become implementable nationwide. Up until that time, people were doing statewide assessments, local assessments, and a hodgepodge hodge��podge?n.A mixture of dissimilar ingredients; a jumble.[Alteration of Middle English hochepot, from Old French, stew; see hotchpot. of a lot of things. What No Child Left Behind did was bring centrality to the conversation, which has been enormously helpful. The problem has been that NCLB has never really clarified--and people are still very hungry for--what's really the meat and potatoes meat and potatoespl.n. Informal (used with a sing. or pl. verb)The fundamental parts or part; the basis.Noun 1. of this conversation. That is, even if we do assessments and find a school that has not made Adequate Yearly Progress Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, is a measurement defined by the United States federal No Child Left Behind Act that allows the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country is performing academically. , the question still is, "Then what?" That's where the field has really been abandoned by NCLB. The conversation has never turned the corner past assessment to instruction. You've been opposed to school vouchers school vouchers,government grants aimed at improving education for the children of low-income families by providing school tuition that can be used at public or private schools. for a long time, and you came to a job in a state where these vouchers are a matter of law. What advice would you give when the rules of the game do not match your convictions? You're always going to find places in the landscape of urban schools particularly where the value structure that's embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. in law does not meet your own. I came to Miami, and I told everyone that as an instructional strategy and as a policy matter, vouchers--for me--were not an option. And I wanted them to know that going in the door. The governor knows who I was before I came here. He and I had a conversation about vouchers. He's very understanding of my views and I'm understanding of his views. That then gave me enough bandwidth to start talking about my instructional strategy and what I would do differently. In Florida, I knew that I was coming into a place that was--for lack of a better term--a red state. But I also understood that there were children here who had a need for high-level instruction, for good literacy instruction, for a school-wide plan on how to improve instruction. So regardless of what the policies of the macro-system look like, the need on the ground dictates what most generals will have to do day-to-day. And as long as you can be true to yourself on the ground, you can negotiate. Finally, from what you can see, what does the future hold in this country for urban school systems, both in terms of their possibilities and potential pitfalls? Let me talk about the possibilities first. I think that the next generation of work around urban schools is to become integrated into the agenda of cities, as I spoke about earlier. In the same sense as any major company in a town, if it shuts its doors, if it changes its policy, if it goes offshore to get its labor, it changes the chemistry and character of the city that it resides in. And schools are a big part of the industry of a city, and urban schools particularly have to become more integral, so we have to work at really establishing the sort of linkages and protocols around the design and--in many cases--the redesign of schools to meet the services of the city. That's a different concept. What are the learning and service needs of a city, and how do schools factor into those needs in terms of technology, the labor force, immigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. , and so on? We are not necessarily in the business of waiting for people to come in to educate them. We're in the business of learning, which has a greater impact in a city than just who comes in our doors. It's much as the railroad half a century ago had to start shifting to become more in the transportation business, as opposed to just the railroad business. In terms of the pitfalls, if we don't figure out this other platform, some other enterprise will figure it out for us. Sylvan sylvanemanating from or pertaining to woods. See also sylvatic. is in the learning business, for example. People will scale that model up and eat our lunch. Also, our dilemma in public education is not that we don't have good pedagogy or that we don't know good instruction. Our dilemma is that we do not implement well. We don't scale things up well. So I think we have to have a higher acumen around that, and if we don't, I think we'll literally become a sort of dinosaur. In communities that have long used the public school system in urban America as the one harbor that they could count on and where they would have their issues taken seriously, I think there's a danger that people will say, "It's just too doggone dog��gone? Informaltr. & intr.v. dog��goned, dog��gon��ing, dog��gonesTo damn.interj. & n.Damn.adv. & adj. also dog��gonedDamned. hard to do, and it's too complicated, and too costly." So potentially you'll end up with a greater divide than you have now. RELATED ARTICLE: Miami's vice: lack of space. As you approach the main entrance of Miami Springs High School Miami Springs High School is a secondary school located at 751 Dove Avenue in Miami Springs, Florida; its principal is Rafael A. Villalobos. The school is part of Miami-Dade County Public School's nationally-accredited magnet program, specializing in travel and tourism, the oldest , not far from Miami International Airport Miami International Airport (IATA: MIA,ICAO: KMIA,FAA LID: MIA) is a public airport located eight miles (13 km) northwest of the central business district of Miami, in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. , the pale yellow buildings sprawl far to the right, much farther than anyone expected when this school opened in 1963. Nowadays, 26 portable classrooms provide additional learning space, but you have to go inside to better understand the consequences of Miami-Dade's student population explosion and why Superintendent Rudy Crew is in such a hurry to build 47 new schools. "This school ballooned about four years ago," explains Principal Douglas Rodriguez, noting that the school day is split to fit in 3,500 students, half attending from 10:35 a.m. to 4:35 p.m. and half from 7:00 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. "That's the shortest amount of instructional time in our county," Rodriguez adds. "Our kids lose many days that you wouldn't lose at another high school." And that's not the only unusual accommodation that teachers and students here must make. Rodriguez leads the way to one makeshift classroom after another. In some parts of the school, students have to walk through one classroom and through an adjoining classroom before finally arriving at their own educational destination. In another larger room, six-foot-high separators allow four different classes to meet simultaneously. "That's why the superintendent's initiatives to build more seats is so important," says Rodriguez. "Almost every office here has become a classroom." Relief is on the way for Miami Springs Miami Springs,city (1990 pop. 13,268), Dade co., SE Fla., a residential suburb of Miami; inc. 1926. The wells in the city supply water to much of Dade co. Miami International Airport is adjacent to the city. . Ronald Reagan Doral Senior High School is scheduled to open in this fall and will siphon off Verb 1. siphon off - convey, draw off, or empty by or as if by a siphonsiphon, syphondraw, take out - take liquid out of a container or well; "She drew water from the barrel" the students from the burgeoning Doral neighborhood. Rodriguez, meanwhile, says that Crew's other early initiatives--from improving reading levels to increasing parental participation--are hitting home, as well. "There's an expectation from the top that we're going to get students to change and that parents will be involved," he says. "And that's the message that I carry forward to my administrators, teachers, and students." --Ron Schachter RELATED ARTICLE: Rudy in New York (part 2). It was just for a day, but this summer Rudy Crew was back in New York City talking about leadership, how passion can help education and why educators shouldn't compromise on their vision. It was hard not to flash back to circa 1995-99, the years when Crew was chancellor of the New York City Board of Education. But Crew owed this visit to Superintendent's Recognition Day, part of Fordham University's Graduate School of Education weeklong Principals Leadership Institute. In a small classroom packed with principals from around the country, the passion Crew has for education was easy to see. His suit jacket off, chalk in hand, frequently mopping his brow, Crew led a one-hour session that detailed his leadership style. Discussing his overhaul of Miami's district, he said, "I'm going to make our teachers as uncomfortable as we've made our kids [in years past]. I don't care This page is about the music single. For the meaning relating to digital logic, see Don't-care (logic)"Don't Care" is a 1994 (see 1994 in music) single by American death metal band Obituary. if they don't like it.... We've got to re-wire people." Although he sometimes struggles to articulate his thoughts, his light side was evident. He imitated teachers at a faculty meeting to make one point, and when one of the program's officials told him he needed to wrap the session up, he demurred. When he saw he wouldn't get his way, he changed tact, agreed and when he thought the person was out of earshot ear��shot?n.The range within which sound can be heard by the unaided ear; hearing distance: listened until the parade was out of earshot. , said, "Close the door. We'll finish here." Later in the day, Crew was part of a panel with six other superintendents. With an audience of about 300 principals, someone asked how the superintendents knew a great school when they visited it. Some superintendents talked of a buzz in the building while others said they were sure to veer from the planned agenda to check out some random classrooms. When the conversation turned to Crew, he stunned stun?tr.v. stunned, stun��ning, stuns1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow.2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise.3. the crowd by taking what had been a feel-good question and attacking it head on. He said, "Let's be honest, there are still some poor performing schools out there, whether they have buzz or not." He talked about one school visit where he felt the principal was trying to fool him with fake progress. Ten minutes later, the principal was fired. "How long do you think you can fool me?" he asked rhetorically. This story crystallizes his leadership style: passionate, unafraid to take on unpopular issues and always yearning to improve the education offered his students. --Wayne D'Orio Ron Schachter is a contributing editor A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. Most often, a contributing editor is a freelancer who has proven ability and readership draw. .