Mayor Bloomberg and Cathie Black might be the last people in New York City who aren’t anxious about Bloomberg’s decision to appoint the former president of Hearst Magazines to be the city’s new schools chancellor. Insiders, pundits, and parents are sweating everything from her links to the Coca-Cola corporation to her tendency to “glaze over” when she looks at spreadsheets, to Bloomberg’s secret search process, to the fact that “there’s nothing in this woman’s record, even on a volunteer basis, that tells me she has any interest in education,” as one public-school parent said at Brooklyn Tech last night to an auditorium full of applause. But Black, who broke her weeklong silence after a meeting with Department of Education cabinet members yesterday, stressed that the schools chancellor position is really a management job above all else. “The mayor has been very clear about the fact that he really wanted a strong and effective manager, and I’ve had almost 40 years of experience with that.”
What about the fact that she still needs a waiver from the state Education Department because she doesn’t have superintendent credentials? “I will be the next chancellor.”
Okay, well what about those nagging critics? “I’ll prove them wrong. This has happened to the predecessors before me and we’ll get through it,” she said, with what we imagine was a distinctly “haters gonna hate” shake of the head.
New Public Schools Chancellor Cathie Black fends off critics [NYDN]
Cathie: I’ll get the nod [NYP]
