The NY Times has a piece on Bloomberg's secretive search for the next schools chancellor. A Times blog follows up with a mildly amusing post asking if anybody was actually interviewed during this search (and if they were, or know someone who was, to write in the comments section).
The secrecy surrounding the search is interesting, but seems like it could be a red herring -- the ability of Ms. Black to lead the schools is ultimately more important than exactly how she was picked . . . with the caveat that if the process makes her appear illegitimate, it could undermine her authority. Witness, for example, this online petition that a teacher friend was asking people to sign asking the state not to grant a waiver allowing her to serve as chancellor despite no educational background.
It's somewhat surprising to me that she's been greeted with this much skepticism given how many district leaders there are out there with no educational backgrounds, including her predecessor, Joel Klein. It will be interesting to see if she's able to win over her detractors or if the next three years will be one long battle.
It is a little bizarre though that Bloomberg would think that the entire ed-reform-industrial-complex, including the Broad Academy, hasn't produced a single person worthy of running the NYC schools. This isn't 1999.
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