The Daily News' front cover last Wednesday summed up the general reaction to publishing executive Cathleen Black's selection as city schools chancellor: “Huh?” In fact, choosing nontraditional professionals to run school systems has become more commonplace nationwide in the eight years since Michael Bloomberg tapped Joel Klein, an education outsider, to lead the schools here.

Challenging the status quo, this new breed has pushed reform agendas that stress measurable results. Individuals from outside education now lead 5% of the country's largest 200 urban school districts, according to the Los Angeles-based Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. In 2009 alone, 43% of the 28 vacancies in large districts were filled by graduates of the center's Superintendents Academy, which specializes in training leaders with unconventional backgrounds.

“There's a difference between being a teacher and leading an organization that's focused on teaching,” says Becca Bracy Knight, executive director of the Broad Center. “You can have someone running a great symphony who isn't a concert violinist. It doesn't mean the violinist isn't important; it's just a different skill set.”

At Ms. Black's introductory press conference last week, Mr. Bloomberg called her a “world-class manager,” and said that her ability to handle a budget and a staff trumped her lack of education credentials. “Our problem is making sure an organization with a $23 billion budget, with 135,000 employees, that has to deal with every level of government, that has to deal with all sorts of social problems, is able to function.”

As chairman of Hearst Magazines, Ms. Black oversaw 2,000 employees who produced over 200 editions of 14