Rudolph F. Crew 1950(?)–

New York City schools chancellor

At a Glance…

Sources

Rudolph F. Crew became chancellor, or superintendent, of the largest public school system in the United States late in 1995. Before his hire, however, the incoming chief of the New York City public school system underwent a long, politically contentious selection process not unusual within the city’s infrastructure. Then Crew arrived for his first day on the job to face not just a school system in trouble but a host of internal difficulties; he would learn to wear the hat of politician as well as educator and administrator. In the latter category, Crew made significant gains in addressing some of the New York City system’s most challenging problems in just a few short months. And as an adroit player in a politically-charged atmosphere, he has won the trust of parents, students, and New York City Mayor Rudolph F. Giuliani—the person who sets the school system’s annual budget. Crew is sometimes referred to as “the other Rudy,” affirming his status as one of the city’s most influential figures.

Crew was born in the early 1950s. His father was a security guard at the IBM corporate headquarters in Poughkeepsie, New York; tragically, his mother died of breast cancer when Crew was just two. Raised by his father in Poughkeepsie, Crew described his father as “a driving man,” he told the New York Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller. “At 6 o’clock in the morning he would say, ’Get up, because we are going to be doing these 27 things today.” And you got up.” His father was also a part-time jazz musician and would occasionally take his son to Harlem when he had club dates. It was the elder Crew’s dream to one day co-own a restaurant in Harlem—he would cook, and his college-degreed son would run the business end of it. With this in mind, Crew’s father pointed him in the direction of business and entrepreneurship as he entered his college years.

Crew, who had gone to a predominantly white high school, repeated the experience with college. He enrolled in Wellesley, Massachusetts’s Babson College as a member of its first racially integrated class. He was one of only five African Americans, and on the campus of the private college that enjoyed a reputation as a training ground for the corporate world, Crew felt isolated and out of place. At one point he almost dropped out, but had a change of heart when he began coaching kids from Boston in a sports program. Forsaking his father’s goals

At a Glance…

Born c. 1950, in Poughkeepsie, NY; son of a security guard; married second wife, Kathy Byrne (a mental health professional), 1992, Education:. Received degree from Babson College; received master’s degree from University of Massachusetts; received doctorate in educational administration from University of Massachusetts.

Career: Taught high school English and social studies in Pasadena, CA, 1973-75; became principal of high school in Claremont, CA, c. 1975; served as assistant superintendent of the Duarte (CA) public school system, early 1980s; Boston (MA) public school system, deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction, 1985-87; Sacramento (CA) public schools, deputy superintendent, late 1980s; superintendent until 1993; Tacoma (WA) public schools, superintendent, 1993-95; New York City public school sys., chancellor, 1995-. Also taught at the graduate level at California State University.

Addresses: Office —New York City Board of Education, 110 Livingston St., Brooklyn, NY 11201.

for him, Crew instead decided to become a teacher. He had also been partly inspired by his cousin, John Crew, who eventually became superintendent of schools in Baltimore.

After receiving an undergraduate degree from Babson, Crew moved to California and taught high school English and social studies in Pasadena from 1973 to 1975. He also taught on the East Coast when he returned to earn a master’s degree from University of Massachusetts; he would later receive a doctorate in educational administration from the same school. While he was in the doctorate program Crew served as an intern to Dr. Ramon C. Cortines, the superintendent of schools in Pasadena. Like his cousin, Cortines became a mentor to Crew as well; later, Cortines would be forced out his post as head of the New York City school system after contentious battles with Mayor Giuliani; Crew would succeed him.

While still in his twenties, Crew became principal of a high school in Claremont, California. He next served as assistant superintendent of the Duarte, California public school system, where his performance so impressed the Boston, Massachusetts school board that he was hired as the city’s deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction in 1985. Crew spent two years there before returning to California again to take a deputy superintendent post in Sacramento. He was promoted to superintendent of the 51,000-student system two years later. In 1993, Crew was chosen to fill the superintendent’s vacancy with the Tacoma, Washington, school system.

In Tacoma Crew became an advocate of efficacy training, an educational philosophy designed to provide teachers in urban or underprivileged systems with new ways of challenging and educating their students. Efficacy is based on the idea that intelligence is acquired, not innate, and that even children from severely disadvantaged environments can achieve above-average grades. In just two short years efficacy brought dramatic improvements in Tacoma test scores, and Crew’s success there bought him to the attention of New York City officials during their search for a new schools chancellor.

Since his election in 1993, New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani waged war on the city’s main school board. (The system has one primary school board, and several smaller boards overseeing individual community districts.) Giuliani had been highly critical of Cortines, and the sharp words eventually caused Cortines to render his resignation. The president of the main school board was another name on Giuliani’s hit list; it was Carol Gressler who would be responsible for hiring Cortines’s successor, but Giuliani wanted some input into the decision, too. Furthermore, since taking office Giuliani had slashed the school budget dramatically, and talked of abolishing the main school board altogether.

Crew was one of several esteemed educators brought in to New York City for interviews during the late summer of 1995, but he was the only candidate to ask to tour one of the city’s schools. The Tacoma school district, irked that Crew was interviewing for another job when he still had three years left in his contract in Washington, issued an unusual public statement expressing their desire that he remain in Washington. Still, Gressler and Giuliani managed to reach accord, and the decision to offer the chancellor’s post to Crew was announced in October of 1995. Crew accepted on October 8, and arrived for work in the pre-dawn hours eight days later.

Some critics said that with Crew’s relatively limited experience, he might not be up to the challenges of the job. He was the sixth person to take the New York City public schools chancellor job in a dozen years. Yet a few weeks after taking over, Crew told the New York Times’s Bumiller that “there isn’t anything I’ve dealt with here that I haven’t dealt with in another school system.” Those problems included teachers working without a contract, a large gap in the budget, corrupt district officials, and, perhaps worst of all, the state of New York threatening to take over 17 schools that were unable to improve the reading levels and test scores of its students enough to move off the state’s official list of bad schools.”

The new chancellor made his priorities to the system immediately clear. He restored junior-varsity sports in high schools, earning him the admiration of parents and students. He asked for undated letters of resignation from administrators at the Board of Education headquarters in an effort to reduce a bloated bureaucracy. He removed a community school board in Harlem and a Bronx school board president; the latter was charged with billing the district for X-rated pay-TV movies, among other criminal acts. Taking the hard line against these officials—who had been elected by their community—aroused a furor that made Crew the target of death threats. He was also stymied by legal challenges, but persevered and was granted permission by the U.S. Justice Department to take over a district in the Bronx.

A year into his job, Crew opened up the books for the entire New York City school system, and showed parents and teachers how its $8 billion annual budget was distributed. It was termed the most thorough accounting in the system’s history. Yet in what was perhaps his most savored triumph, Crew was handed far greater control over the community districts and the schools in them through a reform package signed into law by New York state Governor George Pataki in early 1997. It removed the individual districts’ ability to set policy and curriculum independent of Crew or the main board; the chancellor also won the right to make important administrative personnel decisions within the community-district infrastructure—removing superintendents, for example, whose districts continued to do a poor job of educating students, or those who had political connections to elected board officials.

Crew’s leadership style has brought him accolades. His speeches are so rousing they have been likened to sermons. Moreover, by fostering a good working relationship with Giuliani—they meet on a weekly basis—he has managed to stop budget cuts to the system for the first time in three years. Crew has also moved to mend the frayed relationship with state education officials in Albany. “Six weeks after taking over the job, Dr. Crew is turning out to be far more street-smart than was widely believed, a man determined to take charge not only of the city’s vast school system but of the furious politics that surround it,” wrote Bumiller in the New York Times. Crew’s most symbolic gesture of commitment to his job began with his determination to visit schools on an individual basis. At the rate of one school a week, it was a herculean task that would take him until the year 2021 to complete.

Prior to coming to New York City, Crew had been considered for a superintendent’s post in San Francisco. But a board member there had questioned Crew about his interracial relationship with Kathy Byrne, who later became his wife, and how that might affect his ability to perform his job. They considered suing, but decided the fight was not worth the cost. Crew and Byrne had met in Sacramento when she headed a vociferous parents’ group that was requesting an alternative school; Crew was sent to negotiate. “She was forceful, articulate, demanding, unrelenting—a lot of the traits I like in people in general,” Crew said of his wife in the New York Times interview.

Crew and Byrne married in 1992. Their new family totals seven children: Crew has four from a previous marriage, and Byrne is mother to three. When they relocated to New York City in 1995, however, the mostly teenaged offspring chose to remain behind in their schools and with their friends; Crew and Byrne commute regularly to visit, and his eldest son, Rudy Jr., recently moved to the East Coast and is a producer for NBA Entertainment. In his spare time, Crew enjoys gardening behind his Brooklyn home and fishing.

Yet Crew’s determination to succeed as chancellor of the nation’s largest school system leaves little time for recreational pursuits. His most disappointing lesson came with the realization that teachers and principals can not be technically held responsible when their students fail to receive an adequate education. “This is the only system that I have ever been in that almost requires that you simply lean on the sheer force of your own will and personality, as well as the sort of officiousness of the position itself, to create change,” he told New York Times writer Jacques Steinberg. “To some degree, those aren’t bad tools to have, but they are not sufficient.”

Sources

New York Times, September 17, 1995, sec. 1, p. 48; October 8, 1995, sec. 1, p. 39; October 17, 1995, sec. B., p. 1; January 2, 1996, sec. B., p. 1; December 18, 1996.

—Carol Brennan