Chancellor Joel Klein leaving the NYC Dept of Education to join News Corp (Fox News) - Replacement Cathie Black is another Corporate hack...Let's hope our elected officials don't grant her a waiver to replace him - We need an educator running the largest public school system in the country...Read original...
Joel I. Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, is resigning and leaving city government and will be replaced by Cathleen P. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced at City Hall Tuesday afternoon.
Mr. Klein, in turn, will become an executive vice president of the News Corporation.
The mayor called Ms. Black “a superstar manager who has succeeded spectacularly in the private sector” and added, “There’s no one who knows more about the skills our children will need to succeed in the 21st century economy.” A former publisher of New York magazine, she went on to become publisher of USA Today and now heads Hearst, which publishes Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Good Housekeeping and other titles.
The mayor lauded Mr. Klein, whom he appointed in 2002 after gaining control of the city’s schools, for turning “New York City’s long-dysfunctional public school system into one that the Obama administration has hailed as a national model.”
“He leaves a legacy of achievement that makes him one of the most important and transformational educational leaders of our time,” Mr. Bloomberg said.“Joel has implemented innovative changes that have made an enormous difference in the lives of millions of children.”
Mr. Klein, 64, said his job at News Corporation would be to develop “strategy to put them in the education marketplace.” (See related post on Mr. Klein’s move on the Times’s Media Decoder blog.)
Mr. Klein will stay on until around the end of the year to ease the transition, Mr. Bloomberg said. A former federal prosecutor in charge of the United States Attorney’s office’s antitrust division, he was the longest serving chancellor in the school system’s history, Mr. Bloomberg said.
Ms. Black, 66, said she was “very excited about this incredible opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our young people” and take over the nation’s largest public school system, with about 1.1 million children, 80,000 teachers and more than 1,400 schools.
“Joel brought incredible commitment and energy to this position,” Ms. Black said. “His shoes are very big ones to fill.”
For his part, Mr. Klein said, “There are things we could have done better and smarter,” but added, “I look back with enormous pride on the work that we did do.”
