With deal, Bloomberg’s pick wins helm of City schools

11-30-2010

By Sharon Otterman/New York Times

Cathleen P. Black, a publishing executive, won the helm of New York City’s public school system on Monday with a waiver from the state education commissioner that said her inexperience in education would be offset in part by the appointment of a chief academic officer to serve by her side. In a compromise with the commissioner, David M. Steiner, Ms. Black agreed last week to compensate for her lack of education credentials by installing, as her first act, an experienced educator as her chief deputy, to administer and supervise instruction in the city’s 1,600 schools. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pledged on Friday that the deputy would operate “with the broadest scope for the exercise of independent initiative and judgment.” It was the latest in a series of pledges over nearly nine years that Mr. Bloomberg has made to state legislators and officials to secure approval for his control of the school system. During that time, his administration says, it has followed the letter of the law on mayoral control. But critics say the mayor’s record of success in living up to the spirit of those promises has been mixed. (more…)

Also: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal

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With deal, Bloomberg’s pick wins helm of City schools

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