The following is an excerpt from an editorial by Chris Owens on Park Slope Patch. Owens represents Park Slope on the Democratic State Committee and on the Executive Committee of the Kings County Democratic Committee and is the parent of two public school students and a former Community School Board 13 President. For a variety of reasons, he thinks Cathie Black is a big mistake as school chancellor.

Now, as the nation’s largest education system struggles to prove that its evolution during the past eight years has some staying power, Mayor Bloomberg has hired Cathleen Black to serve as Klein’s successor.  Yet Black has no history of attending, parenting in, teaching in, directly supporting or administering any public schools.  She is hyped as an outstanding manager, but has never presided over an organization with a mission such as the New York City Department of Education.  Remember, however, that she is embedded within the acceptable plutocracy.

Black’s nomination was an insult to every accomplished educator in New York City who has also been hailed as a great administrator and who has worked hard to improve herself or himself so as to better serve our children.  It was a dismissal, again, of parents and New York’s communities.  And, given Black’s lack of relevant experience, Mayor Bloomberg had to apply to the State’s Commissioner of Education for a waiver of employment requirements that apply to school superintendents across the state.

Accordingly, outraged parents, community leaders and educators spoke against this nomination and some 16,000 petition signatures on various petitions were collected protesting this nomination and demanding a sensible search for an appropriate leader.  Mayor Bloomberg offered weak arguments about the need for a great manager as Chancellor (not as Deputy Chancellor), and the Education Commissioner, David Steiner, acknowledged that Black’s background did not fit with this position.