Word: chancellor
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...toughest job in U.S. public education. But Joseph Fernandez, who takes over this week as chancellor of New York City schools, is itching for the challenge. Since he was tapped for the post last September, the onetime math teacher has commuted six times from Miami, where he served for two years as Dade County school superintendent. His mission: to confer with civic and union leaders, politicians, teachers, parents, the press and anyone else with a stake in the nation's largest (940,000 students), and perhaps most troubled, public school system. Says Fernandez: "I had to convince the city that...
...centerpiece of the new chancellor's plan is "school-based management," an approach he introduced in Dade County. With this strategy, in use in 130 of Miami's 260 schools, much of the power has passed from elected officials to individual schools. Although student test scores have not improved and morale at some Miami schools has actually dipped, Fernandez remains committed to installing a similar program in New York...
Fernandez's detractors complain that he has an authoritarian manner and is too chummy with the local teachers union. He has already alienated city bureaucrats by appointing a deputy chancellor critical of the school system and by announcing plans to eliminate some 200 jobs at the board of education's central headquarters. Meanwhile, eyebrows have been raised over his hefty compensation package, which includes a $195,000 salary, free housing and $214,000 in supplemental pension pay. But Fernandez seems impervious to criticism."One thing I will never have is an ulcer," he shrugs. "I get angry and move...