Acting big on a small stage.

Judith Johnson helped shape national education policy for four years during the Clinton administration. But ask her what her most powerful job has been and she will answer without hesitation--superintendent of the 3,000-student school district in Peekskill, N.Y.

"You are directly involved in the lives of your students and their parents," she says of the job she has held for the past five years. "You can touch it, you can feel it, you can see the results of your work."

Johnson, 62, served as deputy secretary and then acting assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education from 1997 to 2000. In Peekskill, a Hudson River village 50 miles north of New York City, she has felt the good and the bad ramifications of national education policy. She has benefited mightily from federal initiatives such as the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which she helped establish. At the same time, she has felt the sting of some of the pricklier provisions of No Child Left Behind.

Johnson was thinking big when she arrived in Peekskill in 2001. Her goal was to shut down the achievement gap between the district's 80 percent African-American and Latino students and its white children--something that has eluded public schools across the country.

One of the first things she did was get a $59 million bond issue passed to replace a crumbling middle school. "The building you walk into as a kid sends a message about how much people care about you," she says.

Getting the bond passed was no small accomplishment in Peekskill, hometown of Republican Gov. George Pataki and a Republican stronghold for years. Johnson was vilified by some as "the Clinton Democrat," and she says the town is still in some ways a "hostile environment" for her.

But she learned the power of resiliency early on, growing up in the projects in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. She remembers how she felt when she discovered she was the only African-American in an honors high school class.

"It was the late '50s," she says. "I walked into the classroom and heard the teacher say, 'How did that colored kid get in here?'"

As a superintendent, she strives to instill resiliency in her students. With the $900,000-a-year 21st Century grant, she created an extended-day enrichment program to strengthen students' connections to the school and their learning.

She also has extended the school year. Though a program called "Finish Not Fail," students who end courses with failing grades get an I on their report cards instead of an F, then have four additional weeks to pass the course.

Johnson said during her first year in Peekskill, 42 percent of high school students passed all their subjects. Last year it was 63 percent.

That's still woefully low compared to the district's wealthy, suburban neighbors in Westchester County, some of which spend thousands more per pupil than Peekskill. She tries to level the playing field with outside grants. The school board president, Connie Lobur, praises the superintendent's initiative in bringing millions of extra state and federal dollars into the district.

Johnson has focused on teacher quality as well. She just negotiated a contract that will require selected teachers to enter improvement programs. Up to three teachers per year can have their salaries frozen if they don't improve.

Johnson still takes on national issues as a member of the AASA Executive Committee. "It gives me another opportunity to go back to the national table and play a role in public policy," she says.

Lobur points to the superintendent's abundant energy and openness even as she warns her against the impulse to solve everyone's problems. "I just don't want her to burn out on anybody, including herself," she says.

BIO STATS: JUDITH JOHNSON

Currently: superintendent, Peekskill, N.Y.

Previously: acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, U.S. Department of Education

Age: 62

Greatest influence on career: A physics teacher suspended me for talking. I stayed home for five days until the principal showed up to take me back to school. Had that not happened I would not be answering these questions today.

Best professional day: The evening Peekskill citizens approved a bond for a new middle school. Waiting for the votes to be called in and feeling the tension and energy in a room with more than 100 supporters was both awesome and humbling. The town hadn't built a school in more than 30 years.

Books at bedside: An American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips; The Color Purple by Alice Walker 

Biggest blooper: A controversial 9-year-old poet, who was invited by a teacher, sought to raise the flag of black power and white oppression in front of a culturally diverse audience. Our students were outraged by tactics pitting students against each other on the basis of skin color. I thought the entire episode would go away if I kept the apologies within the district. By initially refusing press calls I gave the poet and her dad a plat-form to declare falsely she had been banned from the district. I subsequently wrote a powerful opinion piece for area newspapers. I learned to never give critics the only opportunity to present a perspective.

Key reason I'm an AASA member: AASA colleagues understand, like no one else, the significant challenges faced by a superintendent. So one answer is for friendship and camaraderie. Also, readily available materials on unfolding political and legislative issues are immensely useful.

Paul Riede is an editor with The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y. E-mail: [e-mail]