Cathleen Black Crams For Her Test As NYC Schools Chancellor

This week, three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg goggled the imagination when he announced that Cathleen Black would be replacing Joel Klein as chancellor of the New York City public school system. It seemed an odd choice, given the fact that Black is best known for her career in the media as the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, and not for her public sector experience (she has none) or any longstanding interest in public education in general or New York City schools specifically.

The overall strangeness of the pick, however, evaporates once you remember that Bloomberg has a slavish devotion to the cult heroes of corporate management, whom he views as the solution to everything. New York City should probably be relieved that he didn't pick some urban mega-developer to run the school system, actually! (In a nifty pirouette, Klein will be moving on to a position at News Corp., which means that today's top media executives can look forward to a bright future in public education, followed by a bright future as a top media executive.)

You might be wondering of course, how this transition to Black is even supposed to work. The New York Times notes that "hardly anyone knew of Mr. Klein's departure or Ms. Black's arrival until minutes before the official announcement," and that "there is little evidence that anyone else was seriously vetted or considered." All of which suggests a hasty decision. But, Choire Sicha flags this nugget from the same article, that I guess is supposed to give New York City parents some hope:

On Monday, Ms. Black was seen at the Hearst Tower with a thick stack of materials concerning public education. One City Hall insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to risk offending Mayor Bloomberg, said that key City Hall officials had spent hours briefing Ms. Black this week on education issues.

So, it's nice to know that Black is doing some last-minute cramming for the job. For her next trick, she'll probably take in a screening of "Waiting For Superman", as she is surely asking herself, "Wait a minute, does this mean that maybe I am Superman?"

RELATED:
Michael Bloomberg and the myth of corporate genius [Salon War Room]
The Education Of Cathie Black [The Awl]

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Comments

[Betsy Combier]

03:25 AM on 11/14/2010

Betrayed, misinformed and fed up. That is what the New York City public school community is feeling right now after eight years of involuntary servitude to the arrogant insults of Joel Klein, the alleged chancellor. Mayor Bloomberg then appoints Cathleen Black, a media mogul and another person who has no credentials as an educator. The very same Ms. Black who created a sex app for the iphone and droid. Give me a break, Mike.?You put great teachers in the rubber room if they mentioned the word "sex" even in Health Education!
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7848

[genrel1248]

08:11 PM on 11/12/2010

Public schools are a disgrace. Any attempt at reform is fought tooth and nail by teachers unions. Its time to just burn em down and start over again.

[acmes]

05:27 PM on 11/12/2010

Shipped her own kids off to boarding school. Nuff said.

[ODixon]

05:15 PM on 11/12/2010

Yet another nail in the coffin of public education. New York City should be proud (sarcasm intended).

[Matzpen]

04:35 PM on 11/12/2010

NYC’s billionaire mayor just hired a media mogul who apparently has never stepped foot inside a public school to be the new schools chancellor in the nation’s largest school system! The city is gearing up for total war with the teachers’ union so that educators can be pounded into an army of low-wage test-prepers for bored and alienated youth in schools that resemble more like sweat-shops then places for education
http://sherrytalksback.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/an-empire-going-kaput/

[3 magi]

05:08 PM on 11/12/2010

yep...she`s gonna be the one to fire / lay-off hundreds of teachers.

[edwcorey]

04:32 PM on 11/12/2010

"Bloomberg has a slavish devotion to the cult heroes of corporate management, whom he views as the solution to everything."

Corporate management has done more harm to the United States than all the wars in its history. The tobacco industry alone, for example, kills more people each year (435,000: http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30) than the total Union Army deaths in the Civil War (360,222: http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm). Add the pollution, unsafe working conditions (which Republicans are trying to bring back by shutting down OSHA), the Depression, the Great Recession, the Savings& Loan scandal, etc., etc.

These industries weigh us down with Superfund sites and tainted foods and medicines; they spend huge amounts of money fighting safety measures instead of using the money to implement them. They have politicians like Bush tell us things are "safe"--like the air around ground zero after the attacks--just so people can go back into poisoned buildings and keep paying rent to the money-grubbing landlords.

When it comes to principles: Klein's "improvements" to the school system are imperceptible. Furthermore, isn't an effective manager supposed to groom a capable and suitable successor? And he's rewarded by Murdoch?

It's all a load of crap. Everything coming out of our politicians' mouths are lies spouted by corporate ventriloquists. In Bloomberg you have the two entities conflated. He, along with Murdoch, are two of the authors of the feudalism that is sure to come.

[BxRonin16]

04:11 PM on 11/12/2010

!@@$%^*()(*(*&^%$#@@#$$%^&&*())*&^%@##%& Bloomberg @#$^&&$%#@#%^& New York City schools can !@$%&*(*&^%^$#$

[loufarrelli]

04:07 PM on 11/12/2010

One of the more disturbing aspects of this is that Klein is going to work for News Corp. because it wants to get into the education business.

[mathman180]

04:06 PM on 11/12/2010

It's so pathetic, it's funny. Except perhaps to the 1.1 million school children whose life Ms. Black will be affecting, or failing to affect. Like Sarah Palin when asked if she was prepared for the position of Vice President of the U.S., I'm sure Ms. Black didn't blink either. Welcome to the new management reality, where experience is irrelevant and all that matters is connections and enough self-esteem (hubris?) to believe you can do any job just beause you were asked. Nothing like using a major urban school system with over a million kids and a hundred thousand or more employees as your personal training ground. Sheeeeeesh!

[medicim]

03:59 PM on 11/12/2010

Well, we can see where this is going. The golden hoard is the money to be made on the "intellectual property." From now on it will be the Hearst version of history, the Hearst Guide to Chemistry that the kids of New York will be forced to suffer. Hearst is clearly calling in a favor and placing one of their own in charge of the NY public schools. All the media/entertainment/tech companies want to own the schools. The teachers, if there are any left, will be forced to deliver the in house company materials. That's why it's so important to demonize the teachers and to paint them as stupid and incompetent. If the teachers have no ideas, then they will have to use ours, and we will charge for them big time. The Orwellian nightmare right here, right now.

[Students First]

03:59 PM on 11/12/2010

It seems to me that to actually teach a lesson in the New York Public School System, you have to be "very highly qualified". Ms. Black does not hold a masters degree in any area of education, has not passed rigourous testing, and therefore can not even teach one class. Yet she was picked to be the next chancellor. She comes from the publishing world. Very convenienty the schools needs many types of texts, magazines and other types of informational data to teach with. Isn't this a conflict of interest?

[joefoss]

03:28 PM on 11/12/2010

She has no background in education: no education degree, no classroom experience, not even a summer volunteer stint as a tutor in an inner-city neighborhood. She never attended public school and, as a member of the ruling class, she also sent her children, naturally, to private schools.
=But, at the age of 66, Cathleen Black was looking for a "second career." So, she called her friend, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and he suggested that she take over direction of the largest public school system in the nation: more than one million students, tens of thousands of administrators, teachers, psychologists, special education directors, curriculum experts, etc.
=Why? Because that's how the wealthy class--the most powerful "union" in the world--operates.
It's how a "clearly unqualified" George W. Bush got into Andover, then Yale, then got the job as president of the Texas Rangers, then governor of Texas and, ultimately, President of the United States.
=Is there any single act (east of New Jersey) that better reveals the utter contempt that the "business community" has for public education in general and for public school teachers in particular than this appointment?
=Would Mayor Bloomberg, for example, ever choose someone to oversee the city's hospitals
who wasn't a medical doctor? Would he ever appoint a police commissioner that had never walked a beat? Would he endorse a candidate for district attorney who had never been to law
school?
=Well, you get the idea.

[3 magi]

03:23 PM on 11/12/2010

She is the perfect person ( h.atchet ) to lay-off all the teachers.

[weebils]

03:08 PM on 11/12/2010

So it seems HP is going to delete posts critical of her appointment and privatizing public education.

[weebils]

03:03 PM on 11/12/2010

Anyone still have any doubt that the goal of both democrats and republicans is to abolish the public school system and turn it into a corporate money maker? Are you still believing that sham show put on by Oprah, Cory Booker , and Facebook.  Wall street is desperate for money and why not go for the school system which is a guaranteed source of government money. They raided our pensions, destroyed home values, sent our jobs overseas and now they have come for our kids. There really are monsters in the world.