Chancellor Klein’s exit: the best kept secret in the DOE
Chancellor Joel Klein leaves the podium after discussing his plans to resign and join the News Corporation.
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