Source: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Joseph P. Viteritti, who served on my dissertation committee, makes the following observations:

“Joel Klein was a bold leader who imposed more changes on the city schools than any chancellor or superintendent in history. His policies directed the energy and the resources of the system towards those students with the greatest needs. His team was not always the best judge of how much change the system was capable of in any fixed period of time. It was sometimes out of touch with the culture of the organization it was running. Klein knew that his efforts would be met with resistance, but his style of leadership prompted more opposition than the natural inertia of the system would have supplied. He invested political and financial capital in data systems that did not always work.”

“Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City has become enamored with the idea that noneducators can run school systems or units within them. The idea reached a point of absurdity with the selection of publishing executive Cathleen Black in 2011, whose tenure as chancellor lasted for three months.”

Read more at http://www.hunteruap.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/WJSC_Stumbling-Through_Viteritti.pdf