Bloomberg Asks His Friends To Convince Commissioner Steiner To Agree To A Waiver For BlackNovember 19, 2010

Panel on Pick for Schools Has Close Ties to Bloomberg
By DAVID W. CHEN and SHARON OTTERMAN, NY TIMES

New York State’s top education official on Friday named an advisory panel of eight experts, at least half of them with strong connections to the Bloomberg administration, to help him decide whether to approve Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s controversial choice to run the city’s school system.

Three panelists selected by David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner, worked as senior officials at the city’s Department of Education.

One of those three now works at a foundation that was, for many years, the vehicle for Mr. Bloomberg’s personal charitable donations.

A fourth panelist is the head of a museum that has received almost half a million dollars from Mr. Bloomberg in donations since he took office.

The eight panelists share deep experience in the education field as academics and administrators. It is precisely the kind of experience that Mr. Bloomberg’s choice for chancellor, Cathleen P. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, lacks.

Mr. Steiner must decide whether to grant Ms. Black a waiver from state law requiring leaders of school districts to have substantial education credentials and experience.

Citing the prerogative of mayoral control over the schools, the Bloomberg administration has argued that she is a “visionary” with experience in managing large and unwieldy organizations, as well as a familiarity with dealing with customers who are not always happy.

But critics of Ms. Black’s selection, including many opposed to mayoral control in the first place, say that her appointment, which was a closely guarded secret until just minutes before the announcement on Nov. 9, demonstrates that Mr. Bloomberg is tone-deaf to the voices of parents and teachers who want an educator in the top spot.

The panel is scheduled to hold its first, and probably only, meeting on Tuesday in private in New York City. Education officials say that only the panelists, the commissioner and staff members will attend.

While it is not clear when Mr. Steiner will make his decision, many people expect that he will do so shortly after the Thanksgiving break, or well before Joel I. Klein, the current chancellor, departs at year’s end.

The chairwoman of the panel is Susan H. Fuhrman, the president of Teachers College at Columbia University. Three panelists are in charge of sizable urban school districts: Andrés A. Alonso, the chief executive of the Baltimore school system and a former deputy chancellor under Mr. Klein; Jean-Claude Brizard, the superintendent in Rochester and a New York City native who has been a teacher and principal and was a top aide to Mr. Klein; and Bernard P. Pierorazio, the Yonkers superintendent and a former top official at that city’s highly regarded Saunders Trades and Technical High School.

In an interview, Mr. Brizard said, that he would keep an open mind.

“I’m anxious to see Cathie Black’s credentials, and I’m interested to know what her vision is,” he said. “I don’t believe you need to be an educator, but you certainly need to understand what the goals are, and how the system works.”

The other panelists are: Ronald F. Ferguson, a Harvard economist who focuses on the achievement gap between minority students and white students; Kenneth G. Slentz, a top aide to Mr. Steiner at the State Education Department; Louise Mirrer, president and chief executive of the New-York Historical Society, which has received regular donations from Mr. Bloomberg, and a former top official at the City University of New York; and Michele Cahill, a vice president at the Carnegie Corporation of New York and a former senior educational policy adviser to Mr. Klein.

When asked about the panel, Stephan Ellenwood, chairman of the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Boston University and a former colleague of Mr. Steiner’s there, said that he would have expected more panelists to come from academia.

"I don’t know how he got this list,” Dr. Ellenwood said. “It surprises me. The membership of it seems quite uneven.”

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat who has long been critical of Mr. Bloomberg’s education policies, questioned the panel’s makeup, saying, “It appears that the deck has been stacked in favor of granting the waiver in a manner that will further undermine public confidence in the appointment of Ms. Black.”

But Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, the city teachers’ union, said, “All of these people have heavy-duty backgrounds and success in education, so obviously David Steiner is clearly looking at this from the educational side, as he should be.”

One panelist, Ms. Cahill, has personal experience with the waiver issue.

As one of Mr. Klein’s most trusted aides from 2002 to 2006, she played a crucial role in reorganizing the school system and developing new schools, and was the driving force behind new programs for students most at risk of dropping out. But in 2004, she was denied a state waiver to serve as deputy chancellor, because while she had a dozen years of teaching experience and a master’s degree in urban affairs, she lacked traditional education supervisory credentials.

She now works at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a philanthropic organization, as director of urban education, and said it was important to find someone to continue what Mr. Klein started.

“I think that the next chancellor of the school system has to present a commitment to the kind of reform that has resulted in the positive outcomes that have happened in New York City at this time,” she said.

She said she did not see her time working for Mr. Klein as a conflict. “People will assume what they want to,” she said. “I have a 40-year record on education. I have had many professional positions, and I have worked with more than 30 school districts throughout the country.”

Still, it was widely known that Mr. Bloomberg, until recently, made his charitable gifts to hundreds of arts and cultural groups through Carnegie.

But George Soule, a Carnegie spokesman, said Friday that “there was no intersection whatsoever” between Ms. Cahill and that money, which he described as having come from “an anonymous donor.”

Michael Barbaro contributed reporting.

See:
Panel Of Bloomberg's Pals Will Advise Steiner on a Black Waiver

Mike Bloomberg's legacy will be that of finding a replacement for Joel Klein. He is very aware that he made an egregious error in not just hiring Joel Klein, but keeping him as long as he did.

I heard that Mike disliked Joel for more than a year, maybe more. However, firing Joel would mean that people would say Mike Bloomberg saw the error of hiring him in the first place. Mike Bloomberg never, never accepts error of anything he does or that looks like he will be held accountable for. So, Joel stayed, way past his time. Now Mike has three years to ram forwad his agenda in NYC's public school system, so I think we will be even less participative government in this area than ever before....if that is possible.

Mayor Bloomberg must get Cathie Black as schools chancellor if mayoral control means anythingNY Daily News Editorials, Sunday, November 21st 2010, 4:00 AM

Mayor Bloomberg has determined to place the futures of the city's 1.1 million public school kids in the hands of publishing executive Cathie Black. He made the call. Let's go with it.

Barring the unlikely emergence of a disqualifying disclosure, state Education Commissioner David Steiner should sanction Black's appointment as schools chancellor, and do so as quickly as possible.

While Black is highly accomplished, her selection by Bloomberg has generated predictable opposition from those who disagree with his school policies and, more widely, a sense of puzzlement.

The Daily News front page that reported the Black pick summed up the response with the word, "HUH?" over the question, "No education experience, kids went to private school - she's perfect to run our struggling schools! Right?"

Bloomberg is convinced she is. His opinion demands respect, given his track record in identifying talent and the fact that mayoral control of the schools means mayoral control of the schools.

Steiner has a say over Black's appointment because state law says superintendents must possess certain education credentials, while empowering the commissioner to waive the requirements.

The mayor applied for a waiver because Black spent her career not in the classroom or in the education bureaucracy, but in magazine and newspaper publishing, most recently at Hearst.

Concern over formal credentials is overblown. Some of the most important school reformers of the day, including departing Chancellor Joel Klein, are outsiders to the education world.

At the same time, if you go city by city across the country, you will not find a deep field of school superintendents who are gangbuster reformers and show the smarts to conquer New York.

Steiner will decide the fate of Black's appointment on the recommendation of an advisory panel. They all would do well to heed Bloomberg's desire to have in the job a top-notch manager who would be supported by education professionals.

The commissioner also well knows that Bloomberg put the city at the forefront of school reform in the state and across the nation before Steiner was appointed. The policies Bloomberg and Klein implemented then proved to be exactly in sync with Steiner's thinking. He needs the city's schools to stay in the lead if he is to succeed in his own job.

In effect, Bloomberg is asking for Steiner's trust. Based on what's at stake, the mayor needs it. Based on his record, he has earned it.

From Betsy Combier: I disagree with everything said in this editorial, especially in the last sentence where the NY Daily News writes that Mike Bloomberg has earned Steiner's trust. I believe that Steiner always trusted that Mike Bloomberg meant what he said, and said what he meant.

But why does anyone care if Mike has Steiner's trust? Why dont we care if Mike Bloomberg has earned the public, or stakeholder's trust?

With Surrogates Unprepared, Effort To Sell Cathie Black Has Its Stumbles
By Andrew J. Hawkins, City Hall News
LINK
After a surprising and scathing backlash to its choice for the new schools chancellor, the Bloomberg administration finds itself in a strange and unfamiliar place: on the defensive. In response, the administration has been scrambling to marshal Cathie Black backers wherever they can find them.

The lack of prepared surrogates seems yet another byproduct of the intense secrecy that shrouded Black’s appointment.

“I don’t think anyone but the mayor knew this was coming,” said one Bloomberg ally. “The administration was taken completely off guard.”

On Nov. 12, five days after Black’s initial introduction as Bloomberg’s pick to succeed Joel Klein as what is arguably the second highest profile public office after the mayor himself, State Sen. Malcolm Smith ran into Bloomberg at a memorial service for American Airlines Flight 587, a plane that crashed in Belle Harbor weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. By then, several prominent voices, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, both potential mayoral candidates in 2013, had begun excoriating Bloomberg for choosing someone with no background in schools. Recognizing the problems the outspoken opposition to Black has caused for the mayor, Smith, who founded his own charter school and backs education reforms championed by Bloomberg, said he volunteered his support.

Six days later, a statement from Smith was blasted out by the city Department of Education.

“Clearly we demand transparency,” Smith said, explaining why he lent his voice. “But at the same time, when we passed the bill last year about mayoral control, we gave him the authority to hire whoever he wants.”

Still, Smith said that Bloomberg could have avoided the headache by being more transparent during the selection process.

The day before, one from former mayors Ed Koch, David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani went out, a remarkable feat unto itself and a clear sign the administration was not taking the calls to deny Black the waiver needed from the State Education Department lying down. But the pile-on continued, especially from minority officials and mayoral control opponents. Just this past weekend, two legislators, Assembly Member Marcos Crespo and Sen. Eric Adams, introduced legislation that would require the Legislature to sign off on any waivers, while Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries publicly blasted the choice of the screening panel assigned to consider Black’s waiver as having too many individuals with ties to the mayor.

Council Member Jimmy Vacca, citing his credentials as co-chair of the Council’s work group on school governance, praised Black’s “executive experience.” He said he was motivated to stand behind Black because he remembered a time when the city cycled through schools chancellors like new pairs of socks.

“To those who would prefer a long, exhaustive national search and a public process for the selection of the next chancellor, I would remind them to look in the history at the old New York City Board of Education.” Vacca said. “That type of process did not work.”

After he came out in support of Black’s appointment, Vacca’s name started appearing at the bottom of the daily “here’s who's supporting Black today” statements sent out by DOE, a tactic more often seen by political candidates proudly ticking off endorsements for their bid for office.

In addition to Smith, the former mayors and Vacca, those supporting Black include borough presidents Marty Markowitz and James Molinaro; state senators Carl Kruger, Andrew Lanza, Marty Golden and Craig Johnson; and City Council members Michael Nelson, James Gennaro, Dominic Recchia, Jr., and Joel Rivera.

Recchia, the Council Finance chair, came on board after receiving a personal phone call from Black. But those calls were dished out selectively. Vacca only got behind Black after randomly running into her at Tweed.

The usual suspects in the business world also got behind the mayor’s pick. Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, said that even though she is “Cathie Black-ed out” at the moment, she felt motivated to send out a letter trumpeting Black’s selection, signed by a healthy majority of her group’s 200-business leader-plus members. While a PFNYC spokesperson originally said the Bloomberg administration had requested the letter, Wylde said a “friend” of Black’s requested a show of support, upset by the tenor of the criticism that had been piling up in the wake of her appointment. Wylde declined to name the friend.

“The reaction was that people that know her felt she was being misbranded as a socialite, as someone not appropriate for this critical position in city government,” Wylde said. “Those who know her and her abilities felt that city was very lucky to get her and we ought to say something.”

Like Smith’s statement, the Partnership’s letter was sent out by the DOE. Many of the boldfaced names on the letter were not available to comment on their specific reasons for supporting Black. Some of their offices professed no knowledge of the letter and requested forwarded copies from a reporter.

A spokesperson for Kevin Burke, president and CEO of ConEdison and a signatory on the letter, said that he agreed that the mayor should have carte blanche when choosing a new chancellor.

“He supports the mayoral takeover of the schools,” Burke’s spokesperson said, “and supports the right of the mayor to pick the school chancellor.”

Cathie Black and Her Coke Connection

Now That The Fix Is In And Cathie Black Will BeThe New Chancellor. Where Will The Budget Cuts Come From In The DOE?