Contributor

Joel Klein, Chancellor for NYC Schools, Co-Founder for Education Equality Project

Joel I. Klein is Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. As Chancellor, Klein oversees a system of 1,450 schools and 136,000 employees with a $15 billion budget and launched Children First in 2002, a comprehensive reform strategy that has brought coherence and capacity to the system and resulted in significant increases in student performance. In the next phase of Children First, Chancellor Klein is instituting ambitious reforms to make the system even more accountable for student achievement, while expanding the authority of principals to create the learning environment they think is best for their schools. Formerly chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, Inc, a media company, Klein served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice until September 2000 and was Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton from 1993-1995. Klein entered the Clinton administration after 20 years of public and private legal work in Washington, D.C. He attended New York City's public schools and graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School. He received his BA from Columbia University where he graduated magna cum laude/Phi Beta Kappa in 1967, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1971, again graduating magna cum laude.