By Meredith Kolodner, Rachel Monahan and Adam Lisberg
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
(From New York Daily News, November 10th 2010)
Joel Klein, New York’s longest-serving schools chancellor, abruptly quit Tuesday – and will be replaced by a Park Ave. exec who sent her kids to a fancy boarding school.
Cathie Black, chairman of Hearst Magazines, is Mayor Bloomberg’s surprise pick to succeed Klein and continue his sweeping reforms, despite having little educational experience.
“Google’s going to be kept very busy today. Who is she? And why was she picked to be New York City schools chancellor?” asked Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
Klein and Bloomberg quietly talked for three or four months about his leaving – but the announcement, much like Klein’s 2002 appointment, was a surprise.
“When the mayor first broached the idea of my becoming chancellor, I was immediately enthusiastic,” said Black, 66. “The opportunity this presents is totally compelling, yet it is certainly a huge challenge.”
Asked when she last set foot in a public school, she told the Daily News she was in Harlem Village Academy last year – a charter school where she’s on the advisory board.
Bloomberg said Black is a world-class manager who can rely on city Education Department staffers to fill any gaps in her knowledge.
She’s also a choice from inside the mayor’s social circles.
Black’s two children attended the Kent School, a posh, private boarding school in Connecticut where tuition is $45,000 a year.
She also has a house in tony Southampton, L.I., is a registered Republican and made $500,000 last year just from serving on the boards of IBM and Coca-Cola.
“I did have a public search, and I picked the best person,” Bloomberg said, although New Yorkers never knew he was looking for a new schools leader.
“I thought of Cathie Black . . . somebody I’ve known for a long time,” Bloomberg said. “I could check in terms of what she’s really done, what people have thought about her during her whole career. The check was relatively easy because they happen to be people that I know.”
Many insiders were stunned by the choice for the $250,000-a-year job overseeing the city’s 1.1 million students, 80,000 teachers and 1,400 schools.
A City Hall spokesman said Klein’s departure and the replacement search were kept quiet so as to not disrupt the schools.
Because she is not a certified superintendent, Black will need a waiver from state Education Commissioner David Steiner to become chancellor – a process some critics hope to exploit.
Many educators welcomed her – some hoping she will continue Klein’s policies, others hoping she will change course.
“There are so many things we can be moving on education right now, and hopefully we’ll have a relationship where we can move some of these things,” said teachers union head Michael Mulgrew, who battled Klein regularly.
New York’s schools were an emblem of failure when Klein took the job, and his efforts to change them reshaped the national debate over education.
He enlisted high-profile figures like Caroline Kennedy and Bill Gates to overhaul the schools – focusing intensely on test scores, seeking to close schools and fire teachers and trying to tame a bureaucracy that stymied change.
Tests scores went up steadily until last year, when they plunged to abysmal levels after the exams got tougher.
“He helped get people thinking the New York City schools were worth saving,” said Joe Williams, executive director of Education Reform Now. “Nationally, he’s just been seen as a leader.”
Bloomberg backed Klein against all critics and said he gave New York children brighter futures, although experts said his record was inconclusive.
Klein will become an executive vice president at News Corp., helping the media company develop educational products.
“Being responsible for educating your children has been both daunting and humbling,” said Klein, 64. “I thank you for putting your trust in me, and I want you to know I gave it my all.”
With Erin Einhorn and Douglas Feiden
alisberg@nydailynews.com