Rudy Crew left his job as czar of education for the state of Oregon after one year. He is the former chancellor of public schools in New York City and Miami. Crew will return to NYC to become president of Medger Evers College, part of the City University of New York.
As he left Oregon, officials there complained about his travel expenses and vacation time. As czar, he had some good ideas, but the legislature refused to fund them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“As czar, he handsome good ideas…”
Autocorrect strikes again!
So, is Rudy Crews a good guy in this ed reform struggle? I read his book a few years ago, but I have no idea what he was doing in Oregon. (I know, I can google it, probably, but I am also very lazy at the moment. Also, maybe someone has some special insight on what he was trying to accomplish?)
Thanks, Brian. Autocorrect did it indeed!
Ed policy in Oregon is a train wreck. Democratic Gov. Kitzhaber just balanced the budget on the back of public employees by revoking COLA’s contractually belonging to existing retirees. “What’s ours is ours and what’s yours is negotiable.”
He usurped the oversight of local school boards by appointing Crew as statewide Ed Czar who droned on with the usual blather about common core, accountability and standards before predictably bolting for greener pastures.
My school district has fewer dollars, fewer students, fewer teachers and fewer schooldays than any time in the last decade but has more administrators on the payroll than ever before.
We have absorbed cuts to music, PE and other electives but we found the dollars to implement the Danielson evaluation framework.
In Oregon we are spending so much money looking for bad teachers there isn’t money leftover to hire any teachers. That didn’t stop Kitzhaber from signing a bill diverting hundreds of millions of dollars into out of state online charters.
Crew’s position is best left vacant.
I think the best one in the last 2 decades was Anthony. He tried to be a visionary. He also believed in mentoring both teachers and principals–not through Leadership, but by building professional development within each community.
I may not always agree with The Oregonian, but this lays out the travel expense issues. Essentially, we were fleeced. Any grand ideas Crew had are made worthless by his lack of integrity regarding his time actually in his post. My students suffer from his financial fleecing of our state.
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/07/ex-education_czar_rudy_crew_ra.html#incart_river
RE Articles in the Oregonian byBetsy Hammond July 16 & 20th 2013
Admired globally about the USA are the 4 freedoms. These are NOT existent in all developed nations. American artist Norman Rockwell made these rights globally famous though his illustrations. http://goo.gl/a8ItQ Rockwell is also globally acknowledged + respected for his artwork ‘The Golden Rule’ http://goo.gl/V5rmv In the 1960’s Rockwell’s 3rd wife, Molly Punderson a retired school teacher, had a profound influence on his latter work. Rockwell was a colleague & contemporary of : Theodore Giesel (Dr. Seuss) and Bill Peet.
As an Oregon taxpayer, parent of an Oregon-born school-age child & experienced educator from elsewhere, I started to attend ‘some’ OEIB meetings + subcommittee meetings – as a quiet observer. My attempt to have a better understanding of Oregon’s Public Education System objectively: intently listening & observing from the safety of my peripheral. Physical attendance at some – other meetings I watched live-stream http://goo.gl/kCVNc + other viewers, on global scale, did also. (Live-stream = www.)
I have rarely commented on Oregonlive, as often I am deeply concerned about the negative climate, subliminal racial overtones tied in with much name-calling. Oregon’s prime e.g. of cyber-bullying at its utmost. This is travesty of the USA’s 1st amendment?
Betsy Hammond has NOT reported ALL the facts – just some. I believe Ms. Hammond is being used as a pawn messenger by certain politicians in a ‘get re-elected’ strategy – using Dr. Crew as their scapegoat for all that ails ODE, their VERY poor achievement-gap results prevalent longtime before Dr.Crew’s Oregon arrival. Politicians who suffer from ‘Waiting for Superman’ syndrome handed Ms. Hammond evidence of only ‘partial’ truths. Please do NOT shoot the messenger.
Before this vitriolic ‘tarring & feathering’ of Dr. Crew gets more out-of-hand please research the following learning resources:
* Changing Education Paradigms http://goo.gl/rwj7
* Rudy Crew, ‘troublemaker’ (BTW name-calling by poster. Dr. Crew clearly ill with a head cold and should have stayed home on a sick day but could not. This event is not on Hammond’s calendar list?) http://goo.gl/cWe8H
* Dr. Seuss’s Daisy-Head Mayzie http://goo.gl/KdkdE
*Bill Peet’s Cock-a-doodle Dudley (contains a bully named Gunther) http://goo.gl/E3oOQ
* John Godfrey Saxe’s The Blind Men and the Elephant http://goo.gl/V3odM
* Ed Young’s ‘Seven Blind Mice’ http://goo.gl/2oGG
“Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom come from seeing the whole” – Ed Young
There are many Oregonian journalists and commentators who I believe to be most intelligent here – whom will only connect the dots * that I have provided above.
Just returned from Oregon which is bringing in “local” doctoral students to help transform education.
Not quite. A local non-profit, Northwest Evaluation Association, gave the University of Portland, a local private university, a donation of $1.5 million to support its new doctoral program. The funds will support doctoral students to do their research on local school issues. Local districts will help identify issues they would like examined.