Latest DOE Shakeup Comes At A Cost
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
The Department of Education announced plans Monday to reorganize staff and departments in its central office, sparking concerns among many over its cost. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.They're shaking things up once again, and it's not going to be cheap. Top deputies, internal divisions, even the names of things -- from job titles to departments -- are changing in the Department of Education.
The DOE has reorganized several times since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took control of the school system. On Monday, Chancellor Joel Klein announced he's hired two new executives and promoted several others, bringing the number of Deputy Chancellors from three to eight. In an email, he told staff members the changes are in response to the new mayoral control law passed last summer.
In it, the chancellor writes, "New school governance legislation has increased external oversight. Sustaining our reforms will require us to redouble our commitment to an open public dialogue."
Within a year, all eight Deputy Chancellors will be making $192,000. Deputy Chancellor John White will bring home an additional $62,000 next year. This, at a time when the chancellor warns 8,500 teachers may lose their jobs.
"My initial reaction was Holy Kalody! How much more money is this going to cost us? Especially with the city approximately $4 billion in the red," said City Councilman Robert Jackson.
The head of the school construction authority, Sharon Greenberger, will become the department's new Chief Operating Officer. And the chancellor says he's renamed several internal divisions to make them easier to understand.
But the new names don't sound much different than the old. For example, the Division of Accountability and Achievement Resources will now be known as the Division of Performance and Accountability.
"Well I think the negative impact of continuous reorganization is that people don't know who to go or what agency or department handles this that or the other. The one thing that has been constant in the Department of Education over the past eighth years is change itself," Jackson said.
While parents may be happy that there's a new Deputy Chancellor for community engagement, the office of Teaching and Learning is being eliminated altogether. The DOE says they will leave that work to the schools and their support teams.