[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 15, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E246-E247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO MR. JERRY WARTGOW

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. THOMAS G. TANCREDO

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 15, 2005

  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a 
remarkable individual and a personal friend. Mr. Jerry Wartgow recently 
announced that he will be stepping down this summer as the 
Superintendent of Denver Public Schools. He will be sorely missed by 
all who had the pleasure of working with him in his tireless efforts to 
improve the quality of education and the lives of Denver area youth.
  Jerry is a wonderful man who is truly dedicated to education reform. 
In his four-plus years as superintendent he relentlessly pursued 
reforms, a pursuit that sometimes put him at odds with the educational 
establishment and at loggerheads with state and municipal officials.
  Mr. Wartgow's dedication to institutional reform and improving 
results was matched only by his compassion for the children he worked 
for every day. Jerry was a believer in the notion of education as a 
lifetime process. He believed that in order to get long term results in 
childhood achievement, education has to start early--and he brought 
that thought process to the superintendent's office.
  As he told the Rocky Mountain News last week, ``Economically, the 
best possible investment is to put money in early childhood education 
and kindergarten. There's no question about it. That's the best way to 
go about secondary school reform--to start early.''
  Jerry recently also told The Rocky Mountain News that, ``Successful 
leaders have always been able to resist the pressure to make short-
term, quick-fix changes at the expense of sustainable reform.''
  Mr. Speaker, without a doubt Jerry has shown himself to be one of 
those successful leaders.
  Rocky Mountain News columnist Mike Littwin recently penned a column 
about Wartgow that I think did a fine job capturing the kind of man 
Jerry is, and I would like to submit it here for the Record.
       When Jerry Wartgow leaves his job as DPS superintendent in 
     June, he'll leave the job undone.
       Which is, of course, the only way you can leave that job.
       Wartgow will have kept the position for just over four 
     years. In explaining why he's leaving, he notes that the 
     typical urban superintendent lasts only 27 months.
       That's not really an explanation--and he didn't offer a 
     better one--but it is a great statistic.
       In 27 months as a school superintendent, it's easy to 
     either wear out or to wear out your welcome. Or both.
       When Wartgow made his announcement at the Denver School of 
     the Arts in a speech before school principals and staff, he 
     got a standing ovation. That's the way you want to go--before 
     the grumbling gets too loud.
       And there is some grumbling, of course: about struggling 
     high schools, about high dropout rates, about potential labor 
     problems, about community schools that are not always 
     accepted by their communities.
       In his speech, Wartgow pointed to his accomplishments--one 
     form of education reform following another; money raised, 
     even if never enough money; a district that the governor 
     twice named most improved--and then he told me what he really 
     thought about how much you can accomplish on the job.
       It turns out to be a lesson--get out your paper and 
     pencil--for ``education'' presidents and ``education'' 
     governors and ``education'' mayors and school board members 
     and state legislators and congressmen and, yes, 
     superintendents and everyone else who makes education policy.
       And so, of course, Jerry Wartgow's lesson turns out to be a 
     lesson even for Jerry Wartgow himself.
       It's simply this: ``Education reform'' and ``quick fix'' 
     don't belong in the same sentence. And politicians are, by 
     nature of their jobs, addicted to the quicker-than-really-
     possible fix.
       Wartgow put it this way: ``We live in a society of instant 
     gratification. People want instant answers, instant 
     solutions, ignoring the complexities of so many of these 
     issues.
       ``You take societal problems that can't be solved by 
     legislators and they pass them on to the schools. And then 
     they expect the schools to solve them.''
       You know the fixes. Vouchers will fix the schools. Or 
     testing will fix the schools. Or merit pay for teachers will 
     fix the schools. Or charter schools will fix the schools. Or 
     getting back to basics will fix the schools. Or--and, yes, 
     this may be an extreme case--dumping Bless Me, Ultima in the 
     trash will fix the schools.
       And that's just from one side of the educational divide.
       ``We've been working on reform of education since 1978,'' 
     Wartgow said. ``We've spent billions of dollars. Every state 
     legislature has had its own reforms. There are hundreds of 
     thousands of pages of legislation.''
       In his speech, this is what he asked for from the 
     legislature: no more education legislation.
       ``I've lived through all the cycles,'' he said. ``You don't 
     give your children soft drinks--you give them fruit juice. 
     Look in the paper today, and there's a story about the 
     dangers of fruit juice.
       ``It's the same with education reforms. And it's further 
     complicated because people making the decisions are on a 
     different time frame than the students.
       ``If you're a mayor for four years, or you're an urban 
     superintendent for 27 months, or if you're on the school 
     board, what you're trying to do is to make a statement in the 
     time you're there. If you're a young superintendent, with a 
     family to worry about, you've got 27 months. And if you don't 
     show progress. . .''
       It's a story you see played time and again.
       ``The reform time frame,'' Wartgow said, ``is out of sync 
     with the policymakers' time frame.''
       In Wartgow's time frame, he will quit just after a report 
     on secondary school reform is

[[Page E247]]

     completed. One reason he's leaving, he says, is that he 
     couldn't see himself staying long enough to properly 
     implement those reforms.
       ``We know that economically the best possible investment is 
     to put the money in early childhood education and 
     kindergarten,'' Wartgow was saying. ``There's no question 
     about it. That's the best way to go about secondary-school 
     reform--to start early.
       ``But here's the problem: The benefit won't be seen for 
     years. I think that's it. I think that's the issue. I don't 
     have the answer, but I've observed the problem.
        ``The time frame for everything we know about how long it 
     takes for education reform to take hold is a much longer time 
     frame than policymakers and elected officials live in.''
       In the time it takes to go from kindergarten through 12th 
     grade and, with luck, on to college, a student has lived 
     through a couple of mayors, a couple of governors, maybe 
     three or four superintendents, and all with a farewell speech 
     to deliver.
       When Wartgow says he doesn't have an answer for this 
     problem, he is being modest. He does, at the very least, have 
     a suggestion, which would fit nicely on a sampler.
       ``My quote,'' he said, ``is that successful leaders have 
     always been able to resist the pressure to make short-term, 
     quick-fix changes at the expense of sustainable reform.''
       Lesson given. Lesson learned?

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