The DOE is conducting a national search for the nine new posts and said they will be in place before the start of the 2018-19 school year with a starting salary of $190,000. | AP Photo
By Madina Touré
Originally published on July 19, 2018 by Politico New York
New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has been on the job for little more than three months, but his recent leadership shakeup at the Department of Education indicates he is putting his own stamp on the city’s vast education bureaucracy.
When Mayor Bill de Blasio began his search to replace Carmen Fariña, he indicated her replacement would be something of a caretaker, but the staff shakeup Carranza announced at the end of June is the latest sign that he’s executing his own vision and policy agenda — which includes school integration, school climate and safety, changing the way students are taught and integrating supervision and support, among other issues — ahead of the next school year.
In an interview with POLITICO, Carranza said his moves reflect feedback from a listening tour he took across the five boroughs in the spring about what’s working and what’s not with respect to accountability, supervision and the school system in general. And while the leadership team is mostly familiar faces, which some see as a positive, others see the changes in the top ranks as a response to concerns over certain staffers under Fariña, a desire to put people in the right positions and Carranza’s willingness to chart his own path.
“I put my teacher’s hat on, I put my principal’s hat on and I put my parent’s hat on, and my organizing philosophy is that it has to make sense,” Carranza said.
Leslie Santee Siskin, a research associate professor at New York University, said she was a little surprised by the changes because when he was appointed, it was with a “message of reassurance and continuity and no space” between him, de Blasio and Fariña.
“It’s, to my mind, both surprising and encouraging that he has been listening to other people and is trying new strategies to deal with some of the problems that have arisen in his conversations,” Siskin said. “I think he’s less of a caretaker and more of a chancellor than some people had expected.”
Perhaps the most significant change Carranza is enacting is the establishment of nine executive superintendents who will oversee district superintendents as well as the executive directors of field support centers — borough school support centers established under Fariña.
The DOE is conducting a national search for the nine new posts and said they will be in place before the start of the 2018-19 school year with a starting salary of $190,000.
“One of the criticisms is gonna be that you’re creating more levels of bureaucracy and it makes schools farther from the chancellor,” Carranza said. “The fact of the matter is, in a huge organization like the DOE, you have to have people accountable closer to the schools and that’s why the executive superintendent is really important, because schools will know exactly where resources are coming from, schools will know exactly where the buck stops.”
The DOE is also conducting a nationwide search for a new chief academic officer and a new deputy chancellor of community empowerment, partnerships and communications. The new chief academic officer — whose salary will be at least $198,000 — will bring together the departments of Teaching and Learning, Special Education and English Language Learner instruction under one roof, departments Carranza said have been “doing really good work” but have been doing it “in their own silo.”
Carranza’s leadership team includes First Deputy Chancellor Cheryl Watson-Harris, who previously oversaw the field support centers. She will manage the new executive superintendents as well as the Renewal School team, a program for struggling schools that has had mixed results. Watson-Harris is a New York City native and public school graduate who started her teaching career at a Brooklyn public school and was a principal and network superintendent in Boston.
LaShawn Robinson, who was the executive superintendent of the office of equity and access, is deputy chancellor of school climate and wellness. Karin Goldmark, former senior education adviser to First Deputy Mayors Dean Fuleihan and Tony Shorris, was named deputy chancellor of school planning and development. Ursulina Ramirez, chief operating officer, and Josh Wallack, deputy chancellor of early childhood and enrollment, will keep the same positions.
“People expect you to come in and bring in a whole bunch of people from outside the organization,” Carranza explained, noting that New York City is the fifth school district in which he has worked. “I’m really fortunate that we’ve been able to find some really talented [individuals] in the DOE right here, right now that can add incredible knowledge.”
Watson-Harris argued the realignment of the structure isn’t so much a departure as the “evolution of the work” under Fariña.
“There was a strong foundation laid,” she said in an interview. “We set up the field support centers, we built out a clearer role and expectations for the area superintendents and this is an evolution of the work that was already started.”
But in the process of reshuffling the DOE’s top ranks, Carranza also demoted or reassigned several top Fariña deputies: Dorita Gibson, senior deputy chancellor for the Division of School Support who is now executive adviser on community engagement, and Elizabeth Rose, deputy chancellor for the Division of Operations who is now CEO for school operations. Milady Baez, the deputy chancellor for the Division of English Language Learners, left the department. (Sources told POLITICO she was let go).
Phil Weinberg, who was the deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, will serve as deputy chief academic officer for the Division of Teaching and Learning. Corinne Rello-Anselmi, who was the deputy chancellor for specialized instruction and student services, is now deputy chief academic officer of special education and student services.
Mariano Guzmán, senior adviser to the chancellor, will be in charge of the Division of English Language Learners and Student Support while the DOE conducts a national search for a deputy chief academic officer for the division.
An education insider told POLITICO that Gibson was viewed as “inflexible and compliance-oriented” by colleagues at Tweed Courthouse and City Hall, and was not popular among principals.
A source familiar with the matter also pointed to concerns about Gibson.
“I think it’s going to give more people a seat at the table … so it’s not going to be done in silo the way it has been functioning,” the source argued, praising Carranza’s changes.
Some argued Carranza’s shuffle was misguided.
Eric Nadelstern, a Bloomberg-era deputy chancellor, said that Gibson’s new position is “marginalized” and called Senior Supervising Superintendent Laura Feijoo “one of the most talented school administrators I ever met.” He suggested Gibson would have been a good fit for Carranza’s job.
“The fallacy of the school system isn’t that we don’t know what to do about our failures, [it’s] that we can’t even recognize our successes,” he said, accusing Carranza of recycling people who have been around for a long time. “The people he’s found are people who are very good at what they do and much of what they have done is perpetuate the system as it currently exists and I don’t think that’s what parents are looking to the mayor and the chancellor to do.”
Carranza insisted that there were no demotions, saying he named Gibson as executive adviser so she could continue helping him understand “the context of the DOE and some of the policies.” He also said that he and Baez — whom he noted came out of retirement to take on her role — had a “great conversation” about the changes. He said Weinberg and Rello-Anselmi’s positions are “keeping their titles when they assist in the chief academic officer position.”
“The unified vision around instruction — rather than a vision that’s necessarily calling out that we’re going to [do] different things in different places — is a smart way to go,” Weinberg said in an interview.
Supporters said they see the appointments and restructuring as a sign that Carranza is serious about equity, culturally responsive education and school climate in a broader sense. The new portfolio under LaShawn Robinson, who was executive superintendent of the Office of Equity and Access, brings together the offices of safety and youth development, counseling support programs, equity and access, community schools, health and wellness and school health under one umbrella.
And they expressed encouragement over the deputy chancellor of community empowerment, partnerships and communications position as a way to better engage parents.
“I heard that he also had a meeting with his entire staff at Tweed and basically his message was, ‘Get on board. We want everyone on board with this new direction we’re taking and this reshuffling of staff is my way of going about implementing it,'” said Council Member Daniel Dromm, a former chairman of the Council education committee. “So I think he’s laser-focused on culturally responsive education, LGBT issues, issues that really matter to the students that are in our school system.”
Current committee Chairman Mark Treyger said the Council will evaluate the degree to which the changes translate into better student outcomes.
“I think it’s very clear that he is someone who is unafraid to speak his mind and to make changes where changes are necessary and … I know some of the folks that are in these key roles,” Treyger said. “I feel that he is definitely setting his own tone, he is setting his own agenda by making these moves but now we just have to see how this actually rolls out because right now we’re still in the conceptual phase.”
Still, others warned of the adverse effects of adding an additional layer of bureaucracy.
“It will cost schools money and it will serve to disempower principals, which is the last thing you want to do in a system that’s striving to be better,” Nadelstern contended.
Natasha Capers, coordinator of the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, anticipates that Carranza will announce major initiatives in the new school year.
“We probably won’t hear about them until that chief academic officer is announced or some time after that,” Capers said. “That shift just leads me to believe that because it’s such a deliberative shift and in a way that we haven’t seen before.”
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