State Education Commissioner David Steiner has granted a waiver allowing Hearst Magazines chair Cathie Black to serve as the city's next schools chancellor.
The 12-page decision notes that under state law, candidates for a school superintendent's post who lack specific education credentials can be granted exemptions by the education commissioner if they have "exceptional training and experience."
With respect to Black, Steiner wrote that there are many strengths in her leadership experience "that would qualify her for certification in these challenging times."
He added, "Throughout her extraordinarily successful career in publishing spanning more than 40 years, Ms. Black has demonstrated superb leadership vision and managerial skill."
Steiner also said Black had demonstrated "a skill critical to the Chancellorship, namely the ability to lead a large multi-faceted organization confronting enormous challenges and complexities." He called her an "effective communicator able to engage diverse stakeholders towards implementation of her vision." And he said she has "substantial experience with managing limited resources and making difficult financial decisions."
Steiner's decision was made after Mayor Bloomberg amended his request to appoint Black by adding a chief academic officer to work on all matters of education policy and instruction. Steiner had indicated he would not approve of the unconventional choice of chancellor without this new position. An advisory panel he assembled voted down the mayor's initial request for a waiver last Tuesday.
The commissioner seemed pleased with Black's proposal to elevate deputy chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky to the new position. Suransky has 15 years experience in the city schools and is currently working on ways to implement new state standards in math and reading. He also leads the department that provides A-through-F letter grades to the city's more than 1600 public schools.
Steiner wrote that Polakow-Suransky "has a distinguished record of teaching and leadership service" and possesses "deep knowledge and experience in the areas of curriculum and instruction" -- areas lacking in Black's own resume. He also noted that despite supporting diversity initiatives as a Trustee at the University of Notre Dame, IBM and Hearst, Black's own record "lacks specificity" about her understanding of "the needs of diverse student populations and communities in the public school setting."
Mayor Bloomberg issued a statement saying Steiner's decision "was the right one for our kids and our schools." He called for putting politics aside in the interests of the children, and said she would be meeting with parents, teachers and elected officials and community leaders in the weeks and months ahead.
The decision followed weeks of controversy over the mayor's pick of such an unconventional chancellor. A group of teachers and parents organized an online petition opposing Black that was signed by more than 13,000 people. Several state and city politicians spoke out against Black, saying she wasn't qualified. But Black was supported by many business leaders who praised her leadership and by three former mayors who said it's the mayor's right to pick the chancellor.
Meryl Tisch, chancellor of the State Board of Regents, said she hopes critics of Black's appointment back down. Some have said they want to explore legal actions.
"If you care about the families who are served by the system and the communities in which these schools operate, then you would have wanted to have drawn to as rapid a conclusion as possible," Tisch said.
Although the mayor ultimately got his way, political observers say his reputation was tarnished by the fight. They say Black is starting her job having to convince the public that she's really right for the job. Pedro Noguera, a professor of sociology and education at New York University, says Black's credibility suffered because of the controversy over her experience.
"It would really help if the mayor would allow Ms. Black to speak to the public," he said. "And start speaking publicly about what she sees, what her vision is, how she will approach some of the challenges facing the schools."
Comments [4]
Where is the accountability Mr. Bloomberg? How can you be held accountable if you and Mr. Klein cook the books and provide the 'results' on promotions, graduation rates, reading scores, etc..Were we supposed to hold you accountable during your 2 reelection campaigns when you blanketed the airways with your money and what passes for the media in this City did not approach the subject of education without any meaningful concern? how can you be held accountable when we don't have independent numbers to determine the percentage of kids graudating from HS and the numbers of those who have been able to find living wage jobs and the number of those going to college who need remedial education to be able to do colleage work? how can you be held accountable when no one, aside from the parents and teachers seeing the tragedy are the only ones speaking out but not taken seriously?
Good comments VeegeeBee.. I don't believe in the death penalty, but when it comes to the former head of the Department of Building - Patricia Lancaster - I believe she should be on death row. - There were over 50 unnecessary deaths and hundred if not thousands of structurally unstable building throughout the City waiting for the next light tremor or Cat 1 hurricane for them to collapse. These were all a product of a philosophy and ideology that disregards the majority of New Yorkers.
We are seeing this with the education dept with Joel Kline and now with Cathie Black - people who have had no interest in and have shown understanding of the educational issues facing millions of kids in this City. Though I don't expect a schools chancellor to come from poverty, I would expect that person to have experience in Education and to have shown involvement in urban education issues. The world Cathie Black comes from is Worlds apart from that faced by 98% of the kids who's education she will be responsible for. THough not as dramatic as a building collapse, the damage to people and to our City's reputation as the World finance, business, entertaintement capital is as stake since by the end of Bloomberg's official reign we would have had over a million kids go through this Enron 'education by cooking the books' system where at least half a million kids will not have gotten an education to even to even do the most menial work, let alone go to college or a post high school program to learn a trade to be able to compete in the job market of the 21st century.
There is total silence since the advocacy organizations and individuals most concerned with children and education have been bought out by Bloomberg's donations. They are afraid to raise their concerns about the numbers game for fear of losing the donations not only from Bloomberg, but the funding from the City and donations from other wealthy individuals and corporations that run in the same circles as the mayor.
Though Bloomberg might be well intentioned, he does not have all the answers and oligarchies are nothing but paternalistic dictatorships at best
Once again, Bloomberg has acted with his usual
arrogance, Ms. Blank is NOT qualified at all.
Why can our Mayor repeatedly bend the law when it suits him? He got an unlicensed Commissioner for the Department of Buildings, an unlicensed Chancellor for the Dept of Ed, threw over term limits... Considering the Wall Street debacle, why should we think these business manager/MBAs would be good Agency heads? Black ran a publishing empire - ask anyone who ever worked in publishing about their experience. I predict class assignment by Q-Matic, cash penalties for lost homework, and, ultimately, as seen at the Department of Buildings, disregard for professional licensing in the quest for 'efficiency'. And why not? Regents doesn't care - why should the rest of us?
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