They’re backin’ Black.
City and state officials struck a deal yesterday that will allow Hearst Magazines chair Cathie Black to become the city’s next schools chancellor, an official with knowledge of the agreement told The Post.
The arrangement includes naming Deputy Chancellor for Performance and Accountability Shael Polakow-Suransky — a longtime local educator — as the city’s first-ever chief academic officer.
The deal stemmed from a suggestion by state Education Commissioner David Steiner this week that appointing a seasoned education veteran to a No. 2 position would help quell concerns about Black’s lack of education credentials, which are required of superintendents in New York.
It was largely those concerns that prompted a state-appointed panel to recommend to Steiner on Tuesday that he deny Black a waiver.
“This is the product of extensive discussions between the state and the city to address the concerns the commissioner raised, and the feeling is that it substantially addresses those concerns,” a senior state Education Department official told The Post.
Mayor Bloomberg made it clear he supported the compromise in a new waiver request he submitted for Black yesterday that detailed her intention to appoint Polakow-Suransky her “senior deputy chancellor and chief academic officer.”
The letter says that as instructional guru, Polakow-Suransky would be directly supervised by Black — but with “the broadest scope for the exercise of independent initiative and judgment.”
“Mr. Polakow-Suransky’s work has been essential . . . to the success we have had in improving the city’s schools and outcomes for the city’s children,” Bloomberg wrote in the 10-page letter.
Steiner is likely to move quickly in approving the waiver, said the source familiar with the deal.
Polakow-Suransky, 38, whose salary is currently $192,000, started his career as a Manhattan middle-school teacher before becoming the founding principal of Bronx International HS in 2001.
A 2008 graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy, he has also served as chief academic officer for a subset of schools and as a top executive in charge of new schools.
“We’ve worked well with Mr. Polakow-Suransky in the past, and we look forward to working with him and Ms. Black in the future on the critical issues the school system faces,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.
While a number of large school systems nationally have split duties among several top education officials, it’s not yet clear how the arrangement would work in practice.
A solid Number 2
Shael Polakow-Suransky
Age: 38
Salary: $192,000
Experience:
* 2010: Department of Education / Deputy chancellor for performance and accountability
* 2009: DOE, Deputy chief schools officer
* 2006-2009: DOE, Chief academic officer for the Empowerment Schools
* 2005-06: DOE, Deputy CEO for the Office of New Schools
* 2001-2004: Bronx International HS, Founding principal
* 2000-2001: Bread and Roses Integrated Arts HS, Manhattan, Assistant principal
* 1997-2000: Bread and Roses Integrated Arts HS, Math teacher
* 1994-1997: Crossroads MS, Manhattan, History and math teacher
Additional reporting by David Seifman