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Fired schools boss Cathie Black whined yesterday that sexism rather than her own incompetence spurred harsh criticism during her 96 days on the job.
“If I were a guy, would I have had the pounding that I did?” Black asked in an interview with Fortune magazine posted on its Web site, a day after her buddy Mayor Bloomberg effectively canned her.
“And the worst pictures!” burbled Black, still miffed two months after an unflattering photo of her ran on the cover of New York magazine.
The former Hearst publishing boss conceded she struggled while trying to run the city’s massive education system as chancellor, a post to which Bloomberg appointed her despite her utter lack of education experience.
“It was like having to learn Russian in a weekend — and then give speeches in Russian and speak Russian in budget committees and City Council meetings,” whined Black, 66.
VIDEO: WALCOTT REPLACES BLACK AS NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR
A FRESH ‘CHANCE’ FOR CITY SCHOOLS
Those are things Black won’t have to worry about anymore, since she spectacularly crashed and burned in the job — after suffering plummeting public-opinion poll numbers, the exodus of half her deputy chancellors and criticism that she was clueless about classroom issues.
Black told Fortune she’s relieved she won’t be pursued anymore by pesky newspaper photographers now that Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott has been tapped to take her place.
She also declared “I’m a warrior,” and indicated she was tickled pink that she now gets to dress again in designer duds that might have put off working-class students and their parents when she deigned to meet them as chancellor, according to the magazine.
Black raised her left hand and said only, “Ah, c’mon!” last night outside her pricey Upper East Side pad when The Post asked if she really thought that sexism sabotaged her chance at success as chancellor.
Multiple sources said Black had been kept away from state education officials and teachers- and principals-union officials because of fears she would be out of her depth talking about public-education issues.
“She couldn’t give a speech on education because she didn’t know what she was talking about,” one source noted.
Another said: “She was a loose cannon. So [Bloomberg] was smart to keep her underground.”
Although he publicly defended her for months, Bloomberg realized Black was flailing and suffering from a “lack of vision, leadership and ideas,” a source close to the mayor said.
Another source close to the Bloomberg administration said: “It wasn’t like people personally disliked her. And it wasn’t like she was necessarily outright dumb. She was just a total mismatch.
“I don’t think she saw it as her job description to have much mastery of the issues . . . I don’t think she was necessarily all that interested.”
The Department of Education under Black actually delayed plans to expand citywide an ambitious special-ed pilot program and increase the number of schools containing a high-tech education program.
Even when she rolled out a program — finding $10 million to spend on after-school tutors — Black drew criticism for bragging about such a paltry expenditure.
And she badly alienated principals after demanding they surrender 50 percent of their annual budget surpluses to the department’s central office, a serious political misstep given that the money was a relatively small amount for the department’s budget.
“The mayor knew that she was a disaster,” said a source close to the administration. “People were telling him he should fire her . . . He saw the whole thing hemorrhaging, and he’s nervous. He’s a lot more nervous than he used to be.”
Despite having just fired her, Bloomberg raved about Black yesterday on his radio show, calling her “a phenomenally competent woman.”
A spokesman for Gov. Cuomo said only, “The governor supports the mayor’s decision.”
Additional reporting by Helen Freund and David Seifman