Mayor Bllomberg.
Mayor Bloomberg didn’t formally interview any candidates to head the largest school system in the country before he tapped accomplished business leader Cathie Black for the position, sources told The Post.
Bloomberg said this week that he had conducted a “public search” to replace outgoing Schools Chancellor Joel Klein — but sources close to City Hall said that process did not include bringing in candidates for questioning.
“The word that I’m getting is there never were interviews, there never was a search,” said one veteran education administrator. “This was Bloomberg’s plan. He offered it to her, and she accepted.”
Black, 66, also suggested to The Post earlier this week that she hadn’t been interviewed before being offered the chancellor gig out of the blue several weeks back.
Bloomberg yesterday staunchly defended both the process and the reasoning behind his selection of Black, the chairwoman at Hearst Magazines, arguing that the city needed a strong manager to lead the behemoth education bureaucracy.
“To go through a lengthy process in the middle of a school year is just not something in our kids’ interest,” he said on his weekly radio show.
“We have a list of people in my mind that if [there’s an opening] . . . I know pretty much who I would make my first call to, to see if we can get somebody to fill in right away.”
Bloomberg also said he and Klein “spent a lot of time finding the right person.”
City Hall press personnel, who have said they wouldn’t name any of the candidates considered for the chancellor post, refused yesterday to even say how many candidates, if any, were interviewed.
Questions were also raised yesterday about whether the city’s education policy board would be required to play a role in seeking a waiver for Black’s lack of certification as a superintendent.
Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan appointee on the Panel for Educational Policy, wrote city Department of Education officials this week seeking clarification on whether the panel must vote on the waiver.
“By my reading of the law, it is the board of education that must make the request to the [state] Commissioner [of education] for the waiver,” Sullivan wrote.
City officials disagreed, saying they had received waivers for Klein and others without approval from the panel. They said they were still crafting a waiver for Black.
Additional reporting by David Seifman