Profles in Education
Joseph P. Viteritti, Hunter College
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.
Hunter's newly appointed Blanche D. Blank Professor of Public
Policy in the Department of Urban Affairs, Joseph P. Viteritti,
is thrilled at coming home. Dr. Blank was Viteritti's special
mentor at Hunter when he was an undergraduate there, and though
he went on to hone a professional career teaching and conducting
research on education policy and state and local governance
at Princeton, NYU and Harvard, getting back to Hunter—“a
special place”—is a particular delight—Hunter
students “are the most interesting students I've ever
encountered.” Dr. Viteritti's wide-ranging public service
in the city, not to mention extensive research, including collaboration
on four books with Diane Ravitch, should serve him well, he
trusts, especially as he also brings to his new position years
of experience in civic life, including assisting past Schools
Chancellor Frank Macchiarola, another special mentor, advising
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on nonpublic schools, and working
on various mayoral transition teams, Democratic and Republican.
Dr. Viteritti is
a strong believer in mayoral control of education.
At Hunter Dr. Viteritti, who has a Ph.D. in political science
from CUNY, will continue to study the relationship of charter
and parochial schools to local governance. He wants to “change
the discourse” on urban education in general, and to
that end is particularly pleased that Roosevelt House, the
Upper East Side town house which Hunter owns and which Eleanor
Roosevelt once called home, will again be a venue for intellectual
and cultural activity. He's excited at the prospect that the
space might be used for dialogue on domestic policy and urban
affairs issues, that discussions would be open to the entire
university, and that lectures could draw on Hunter faculty
expertise in areas such as immigration, health science and
women's issues, as well as education.
Much of the current
debate about education is being conducted with misinformation
or no information, he suggests. For example, take two scenarios:
a school sends home a note to parents saying that their child
is performing at level 2. Sounds terrible. But what if the
note also contained the information that 85 percent of the
children in that grade were performing at level 2? The difference
would be dramatic. In the first case, the child would be
having difficulty, in the second, the school. And if the
latter were the case, then parents should have the right
to choose another school through vouchers. He would like
to see Roosevelt House discussions refocus what for him has
become a divisive way of framing school choice, with left and
right squaring off against one another. “Getting people
to think more broadly is what academics should do.” His
most recent book, Choosing Equality: School Choice, the
Constitution and Civil Society, shifts the discussion from marketplace considerations
to issues of “social justice” and emphasizes how
low-income parents in inner cities would have the same options
as those in the middle and upper classes. Though impassioned
about vouchers and charters, Dr. Viteritti says his goal is
fair discussion, not proselytizing. The symbolism of choice
may even be more important than its immediate implementation,
he notes, but in any case with vouchers money would go to a
child, not a school.
It will take time, Dr. Viteritti knows, to
change long-held positions, particularly in New York City,
but he points to a growing acceptance of charter schools, despite,
admittedly, the failure of some, and he strongly believes that
a continuing nuanced framing of the issues can go a long way
to moving toward different public policy. No Child Left Behind
is already affecting standards and accountability, he points
out. At Hunter he would hope that “no
holds barred” discussions—so often relegated to graduate
or professional schools—would involve undergraduates.
After all, education is not just training for a career but
preparation for citizenship. And therein lies the necessity
for, not to mention the attraction of, a critical exploration
of the interface of education and public policy.#
