Chancellor Klein’s exit: the best kept secret in the DOE
News that Chancellor Joel Klein will step down has caught his staff — even his most senior advisors — by surprise and sparked debate over whether he was pushed to resign.
Department of Education employees, some of them eight-year veterans with strong personal ties to the chancellor, learned of Klein’s resignation at a press conference this afternoon. And they didn’t meet his replacement, Hearst Magazines chairwoman Cathleen Black, until after the mayor and chancellor addressed reporters.
“I was literally scheduled for a 4 o’clock meeting, walked in, and watched a bunch of people going ‘Oh my God,’” said a DOE official.
Said another: “It’s the best kept secret in the history of the DOE.”
Even Black’s meeting with teachers union president Michael Mulgrew, which