SED Chief Steiner Resigns
by Anne Silverstein
In a day that made education reporters delirious with riches, the heads of the NYC school system and the NYS
education system announced their resignations within hours of each other.
“It’s just a bizarre coincidence,” Dr. David Steiner, the state education commissioner, told reporters. But some pundits reflected that he may have sealed his fate once he made the unpopular decision to grant publishing executive Cathleen Black a waiver to become NYC Schools Chancellor. (Said education historian Diane Ravitch, “The bar was dropped so low to get a waiver for Black that no one could ever be denied one in the future unless he or she had a criminal record.”)
Dr. Steiner plans to return to his former position as Dean of CUNY's Hunter College School of Education, a job he left more than 1 ½ years ago to take over the state’s education system. When he leaves at the summer’s end, he will have completed a two-year tenure. According to insiders, Senior Deputy Commissioner
John King is a strong contender for the commissioner’s job.
Dr. Steiner oversaw the creation of a new teacher and school leader evaluation system and the raising of testing standards. The upshot of that – the stellar improvements in student achievement turned out to be what critics had said all along – not true.
Dr. Steiner also led the state’s efforts to win a $700 million federal grant in the Race to the Top competition, navigating the competing interests of union leaders, lawmakers and education reformers.
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