Metro

Mayor Bloomberg calls ousted school chief Cathie Black ‘phenomenally competent’

A day after showing her the door, Mayor Bloomberg said it is hard to say why Cathie Black’s reign as schools chancellor derailed after just 96 days — and instead focused on her good qualities by calling her “a phenomenally competent woman.”

Bloomberg made the comments this morning during his weekly radio show and 24 hours after he had met with Black to tell her she was getting the ax.

During a news conference Thursday at City Hall, Bloomberg said that the two had “mutually agreed” she should step down after just three months on the job.

WHY MAYOR BLOOMBERG FINALLY AXED CATHIE BLACK

“I think that anybody who is willing to put themselves in the public arena and tries to help deserves a lot of credit,” said Bloomberg, who refused to slam Black over her hapless performance as school chancellor over the past three months.

Despite the fiasco the Black appointment created, Bloomberg said he hopes to continue attracting staffers from the private sector.

“If I asked her to do something for the city, I am sure she’d do it instantly,” Bloomberg said, without elaborating.

Black, 66, a former publishing executive, drew criticism for her lack of education experience.

Black will be replaced by Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, who has served as a cross between a chaperone and mentor to Black since the out-of-left-field announcement of her appointment was made Nov. 11.

Black, who officially took over for former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein in January, has been plagued by low approval ratings over the past few months.

Earlier this week, a NY1/Marist College poll showed that just 17 percent of New Yorkers think she was doing a good job, while 61 percent would give her a failing grade. Black’s approval rating in a Quinnipiac University poll three weeks ago was a similarly abysmal 17 percent, with 49 percent wishing she’d leave.

Black’s brief tenure was marked by controversy from the get-go.

In January, Black, whose lack of education and government work had been controversial since her appointment, joked about using “birth control” to stem school overcrowding during a meeting with concerned Manhattan parents.

She also likened her hard choices to those of a Holocaust victim from the novel and movie “Sophie’s Choice.”

Black later personally apologized, but some people say she never quite rebounded from the fallout. Mayor Bloomberg defended her on that occasion.

“I think the comment she made to me and my neighborhood was the writing on the wall,” said Community Board 1 chair Julie Menin.

At a meeting with students and parents in Brooklyn, Black again put her foot in her mouth.

As a chorus of boos greeted her at Brooklyn Tech HS this past February, Black mocked the crowd.

“I cannot speak if you are shouting,” Black had said before mocking the crowd’s response by repeating, “Ohhhhh.”

Since Black took the helm of the nation’s largest school system, four of the eight top deputies in place to support her have jumped ship — include two just this week.