So, Hearst Publishing executive Cathie Black, a woman who has rarely if ever stepped inside a NYC public school, got her waiver and will be the next chancellor of the nation’s largest public school system.

Strange as it may sound, it sort of makes sense considering Mayor Bloomberg’s preference for corporate managers with little or no specific expertise in public service.

He himself was a media mogul with no political experience when he became mayor of New York City. Joel Klein was also a relative novice when he was crowned NYC school’s chancellor 8 years ago.

Like likes like. In other words: Bloomberg understands the corporate mindset and believes that big organizations, whether they are school systems or media companies, need superstar managers. Given that he has mayoral control over the NYC school system, that’s his prerogative. (I actually believe in mayoral control because I think someone has to be in a charge of such a large, unwieldy system).

But what about the many parents, teachers and administrators who say a chancellor should be an educational visionary? They’re a little bit right and a little bit wrong. The job of running a ginormous educational system, that serves more than one million students at 1,600 schools with 135,000 employees (including teachers, administration and others), is largely a managerial job. However, it does seem to me that that person should, at least symbolically, have expertise in education and a commitment to what teachers do and how children learn.

I mean, it is a school system after all.

Because Black lacked these qualifications there was, understandably, a huge public uproar. It was a real “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore” moment. More than that, I think it was the last straw for a public exasperated by an autocratic mayoral style that sometimes feels like the rule of a dictatorial personality who espouses: my way or the highway.

This time, a majority of people, as well as David Steiner, New York State Commisioner of Education, and a panel of experts (picked by the commish) disagreed with the-Mayor-who-would-be-king. This time, people spoke out loud, clear and repeatedly and the mayor was forced to rethink his plan.

It may be a sign of Black’s superstar managerial smarts that it was her idea to promote deputy chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky to the new position as her educational deputy.

At 37, Polakow-Suransky has spent 15 years at the Department of Education, including six years as a math teacher at the successful Bread and Roses Academy in Harlem. He is currently working on a plan to bring new state standards in math and reading. He also runs the department that gives the schools the A-F grades. The truth of the matter is: the man selected for the job, is, in some ways, the man responsible for the assessment-oriented way of doing business at the Department of Education.

Polakow-Suransky was born in South Africa, where his parents were anti-apartheid activists who left the country in 1973 and moved the family to Michigan. His younger brother Sasha Polakow-Suransky told the New York Times that Suransky organized his 7th grade classmates to fight racism. A widower with no children, his wife died of breast only a year ago.

Cathie Black now has an educational expert at her side. But don’t think he’s going to bring a humanistic educational vision to the table. Not only does he drink the Kool Aid of the mayor’s statistics-oriented system, he’s the guy who developed it. This may be a case of be careful what you wish for or an instance of the Wizard coming out from behind the curtain.

Clearly the mayor wants more of same at the Department of Eduation and he sure as heck didn’t want to pick someone who would take the department in a new direction before the next election. Cathie Black will manage the troops but Polakow-Suransy just got his orders from the boss: more of same, keep on testing, and make sure Cathie Black knows what’s important around here.

Now that Black is chancellor, I think it’s time that she speaks to the public. She should come out from hiding and tell the city what she’s all about. She may not be everyone’s choice of educational  chancellor for the city but she’s our chancellor and let’s hear what it is she has to say.