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August 6, 2012

City picks parent, principal, network leader to head Stuyvesant

by Philissa Cramer, at 4:54 pm

In a picture the Department of Education distributed on Twitter, Chancellor Dennis Walcott speaks to Jie Zhang, Stuyvesant High School's interim principal, today.

A longtime educator who began her career teaching girls in jail has been named acting principal at the city’s most selective high school.

Jie Zhang, who led a different elite high school for five years, will be interim acting principal at Stuyvesant High School, Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced today. She replaces Stanley Teitel, the school’s 11-year principal, who announced his retirement last week amid an investigation into a cheating scandal at the school.

“We are fortunate to have tremendous leaders and talented teachers like Jie Zhang in New York City public schools, and we are thrilled to have her join the Stuyvesant High School community,” Walcott said in a statement.

Zhang is not actually new to Stuyvesant: She has been a parent there since 2005, when her older child enrolled, and last year she headed the Department of Education “network” that Teitel selected to support the school. Her daughter is a junior.

The cheating scandal that erupted in June implicated more than 70 students, giving rise to criticism that Stuyvesant’s cutthroat environment encourages students to take shortcuts to success. But in a phone call with reporters today, Zhang said she did not learn about widespread cheating at Stuyvesant as either a parent or an administrator. Still, she said, improving the school’s “culture” so that cheating does not take place is her first goal.

“I have not been made aware … or have a reason to believe that there is ongoing cheating there,” Zhang said. “However, my top priority is to create a positive school culture that ensures integrity and zero tolerance for cheating.”

An investigation is ongoing into whether administrators at Stuyvesant followed the proper procedures after learning about the cheating. Department officials declined to say whether network officials had been interviewed by investigators, saying that the department never comments on open investigations.

And explaining that she has not been offered the slot permanently, Zhang declined to outline any specific plans for the school. But she said its “academic offerings could be looked into to be able to meet the needs of individual students.” She also pointed to the expansion of advanced courses and research programs under her leadership at the Queens High School for Sciences at York College as some ideas she might consider for Stuyvesant.

She also said she would work to foster racial diversity at Stuyvesant, which has been criticized for not serving students of all races equitably. Citywide, 72 percent of students are black and Latino, but at Stuyvesant, it’s Asian students who make up 72 percent of enrollment. Just 4 percent of Stuyvesant students are black and Latino, although those numbers could edge up this year.

“I’m for the idea of diversity,” said Zhang, who would be Stuyvesant’s first Asian principal. “We live in New York City where diversity is the key. I’m definitely going to promote the idea of diversity.”

Zhang was born in China and moved to New York to get a master’s degree in applied mathematics. She began working in city schools in 1988 as a teacher at a girls’ school on Riker’s Island. She became a math teacher at Forest Hills High School, a large and high-performing school in Queens, in 1993, then spent two years as its assistant principal for mathematics.

After a stint helping middle and high schools with math instruction, she took over Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, one of several specialized high schools opened under the Bloomberg administration. Last year, she left to work as a network leader to more than 30 schools, including Stuyvesant.

Zhang’s resume makes her an ideal pick to lead Stuyvesant, principals union president Ernest Logan said in a statement.

“Jie has exactly the right combination of outstanding academic and administrative experience to allow her to maintain the stability and standard of achievement for which Stuyvesant High School has always been famous,” Logan said.

Zhang said she hopes to become the school’s permanent principal after the city’s required appointment process is completed this fall. That process, known as C-30, requires sign-off from a committee that includes parents and teachers, some of whom are already familiar with Zhang.

“I know that she is a math person and I know that there are math teachers at Stuy who know her well and who think very highly of her,” said Mike Zamansky, the school’s longtime computer science teacher. “My experiences with her have been very good.”

And Zhang’s experiences with the school have been good, too. After leaving Stuyvesant, her son graduated in three years from Harvard University, where he studied physics, math, and computer science, she said. This fall, he is set to begin graduate work in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.

How much does Zhang credit Stuyvesant for her son’s success? “Ninety-nine percent!” she said. “I get the 1 percent.”

This story has been corrected to characterize correctly the statement issued by principals union president Ernest Logan.

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  • Ray Brower

    Cough…Tweed stooge…cough.

  • Yes

    If there is a widespread cheating problem…and there is ……..with the NUMEROUS facebook pages with kids posting their homework….is a principal whose own children may be knee deep in it the right choice?  We shall see.

  • Parent

    Jie Zhang sounds like an excellent choice. Congratulations to the DOE for choosing a parent with extensive teaching and administrative experience and a good understanding of what makes Stuyvesant one of the country’s best high schools.

  • guest

    Question (and I don’t have the answer)…..is it wise to have a Principal of a school where her child is a student?  Is it good for the student?

  • Nycdoenuts

    This is so cool Another network leader has become a principal. They must be Tweed’s “go-to” people. Only they don’t rarely seem to go up…only down to principal.

  • Anonymous

    Message for Jie Zhang:
    There’s a fine line between gaming a system and outright cheating. Cultures that promote systems gaming often accept cheating as a bolder version, depending on the circumstances. These cultures depend on people thinking that doing things the honest or right way is the hard way or the way for ‘chumps’ (insert current term there). They don’t really grok the idea of personal integrity and see the system or establishment as bad and set up against them, and all things are fair in war, etc. These are the issues you must grapple with, I think.

  • Parent

    What would be “up” from network leader?

  • Guest

    Principal is the best job in the system:  hands down!

    I applaud her choice.

  • Nycdoenuts

    Hmmm, how’s ‘Deputy Chancellor of Operations’ for an answer?

    But the point -that principal is a step down and that Tweed seems to be asking several network leaders to take that step- shouldn’t be lost.

  • Guest

    “I have not been made aware … or have a reason to believe that there is ongoing cheating there,” Zhang said. 
    To have 2 children go to this school, and think this was an isolated incident?

    Either lying or entirely oblivious.

  • Anonymous

    My daughter will be a junior at another large specialized high school. When we discussed the cheating scandal at Stuy, as well as the market in amphetamines among high school students recently publicized in an article in the Times, she said, yes, some kids cheat, some kids take drugs to do better on tests or sell their drugs. But not all students, not most students. My guess is that it’s similar at Stuy.

  • Guest

    I can’t speak towards her being an excellent choice or towards her teaching and administrative experience, but it’s the students that make Stuyvesant one of the country’s best high schools.

    Change that, and you change everything.

  • Guest

    it’s not.

    Stuyvesant had plenty of cheating scandals while Jie Zhang was part of the PTA.

    School wide scandals such as a departmental final examination having to be re-administered after a student obtained a copy and distributed it to the grade. These stories did not get passed around to the media, but were well known about within the school.

    To be part of the PTA, and not hear about things like that…

  • Anonymous

    What’s worse is that the cheating that happens at Stuyvesant is on such a cooperative level. I remember being in classes where the entire student body worked together to cheat.

    Cheating here is different from other schools, because the students are more clever in their methods of cheating.

  • Nycdoenuts

    TEACHER is the best job in the system. The real agents of change? Teachers. All the action? In the classroom (that place of learning within the learning institution). Those ‘magic moments of learning’? Brought to you by teachers. The people who touch the future? Teachers. Nice for this lady in the fancy school…”teacher” is the best job in the system….

    … But ‘deputy chancellor of operations’… Definately a close second.

    (You should avoid reading the Post whenever possible it’s been known to rot the brain and twist people’s minds from time to time.)

  • burned

    I had similar questions.  Besides the good points guest makes:   It puts the teachers of the child in a bad position.  Also, a principal has the power to change a student’s grade.  Although it isn’t “conflict of interest” in the usual sense, there is a role conflict there. 

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Prior to the uptick in Black and Latino students in the incoming 9 th grade class at Stuyvesant, their population, like those of teachers in the city’s schools over the same period, had been declining for years.

    That makes it all the more revealing how Ms. Zhang only went so far as to say she supports the “idea” of diversity.

    Well, at least if City Hall and Tweed can’t “practice” diversity – declining Black and Latino enrollments in elite schools, declining numbers of teachers of color, the blond leading the blond at Tweed itself – I guess we should take comfort that they support it’s “idea.”

  • Ray Brower

    Question, what exactly does a “Network Leader” do? I want tangible specifics, otherwise it’s just another fancy sounding nonsense Tweedie title probably created for someone with connections.

    I can’t wait for the next Mayor to gut all these useless management positions and return their salaries directly to the classroom.

  • Stuy Parent

    Actually, network leaders make more $$$ than Principal(s).  This position is most likely a cut in pay for Ms Zhang.

  • http://twitter.com/Inverness Inverness

    Jie Zhang wasn’t much of a teacher, so she became a principal. 
    She’s an apartchick, plain and simple.

  • http://twitter.com/Inverness Inverness

    that is apparatchik

  • StuySwag

    Seriously? What the hell does Stuy have anything to do with the amount of Black/Latino students who get accepted?

    I am Hispanic, and I graduated from Stuy. I am currently attending Columbia SEAS.
    Let me tell you this: The trick to getting accepted is being intelligent enough to pass a test in 8th grade. It’s as simple as that.

    The reason many minorities do not get accepted is because they may not have had the same opportunities as other kids growing up. I was lucky enough to have a hardworking father and a relentless mother who worked together to push me beyond the stereotypes and ignore the incessant racial remarks that are often thrown around at school. Others are not so lucky. They have parents who work all day at several jobs just to get by. These come home too late and exhausted to encourage their kids to succeed. These are the kids that need a functioning educational system the most. On top of that, the local public schools in bad neighborhoods are chock full of idiotic teachers who couldn’t give a damn about the future of their students. How do I know this? I’ve visited several schools where Latinos/Blacks are the majority–the sheepish mugs on the teachers are a testament to their incredibly selfish and unbelievably careless attitudes.
    The only way to change the amount of minorities at top schools is to completely rehaul the crap that is NYC’s elementary and middle schools.

  • Tim

    Any time there’s been a reason on this site to discuss a Leadership Academy or younger principal, inevitably there are comments about how principals should have extensive classroom experience, graduate to becoming an AP, and then grow into the principal’s role. 

    Here is someone who has taken pretty much exactly that route, and who has five years’ worth of experience as the principal of another selective exam school to boot, and in the span of four hours here we’ve seen her called a “Tweed stooge” and an “apparatchik,” and had it implied that she condones cheating and must have been a failure as a network leader. 

    Unbelievable. 

  • Stuylin’

    Anyone who isn’t aware of the cheating in Stuy after two children going there, is either dangerously oblivious or lying. 

  • Former Teacher

    This is interesting.  Every article touts Ms. Zheng as an experienced educator and administrator. Millennium’s new principal is also experienced as a teacher and administrator.  The only schools that the DOE wants to keep around get experienced people {who are quite rare at this juncture] to run the school and the rest of the schools get people like Cathie Black. Another fine example of the DOE doublespeak.

  • Teacher

    It’s about time Stuy gets someone who is qualified.
    At Queens H.S. for the Sciences at York College, she brought massive improvements in the progress report.
    I hope this isn’t just a little game doe is playing and sits her only for INTERIM until they find some white male for the permanent job.

  • Sameastheoldboss

    A network leader is supposed to lead a team (CFN) that supports the principals and schools that pay it from their school budgets to do so. Here’s Zhangs’ record as leader in just one year:
    Environmental Studies, Eleanor Roosevelt & Bronx HS for Science- principals under attack in media;Stuyvestant- principal retires amid cheating scandal-network leader grabs his job;HS for Math, Science & Engineering, Business & Computer Apps HS, Townsend Harris, Humanities/Arts HS, Robert F. Kennedy, Law/Govt.Community Service HS– principals resign;Newtown- saved by court decision;Cleveland, Bryant, Richmond Hill-saved by court decisions- principals forced out;Jamaica HS- closing;Cleveland, Bayside, Francis Lewis- left network.

    No wonder she got this job. She is a Tweedie’s delight. She and her team were supposed to be the ones advising Stuyvestant about secure test procedures, right?

  • johnson883

    I don’t get how the race or gender of the person should matter?

    That’s the problem with this country these days, instead of picking someone qualified, we focus on their race and gender.

  • Ray Brower

    It has more to do with her position of Network Leader, a plush position only given to those with connections.

    Ask 99 percent of all job titles working in a school what a network does and how it’s made a difference and you’ll be greeted by a universal blank stare.

  • Mhesse

    HSMSE’s principal resigned only because he was offered a more desirable DOE job. That’s not scandalous. The new principal there has been well received by all.

    M Hesse, teacher, union chapter chair at HSMSE

  • Anonymous

    Or, with 3000 students in the school, the cheaters are a small segment.

  • Anonymous

    Couldn’t agree more. I’m glad someone has pointed this out. The vast majority of Stuyvesant comes from a handful of certain middle schools and the rest went to certain cram schools on weekends.

    And inner city parents likely never heard of neither type of school; no word of mouth. I bet no administrators ever told them, either; because the administrators think it’s a waste of time.

  • Anonymous

    There. are. three. thousand. students. The cheaters and amphetamine takers are a small minority. Of course not everyone would know.

    And do you really think someone would advertise that they cheated or took uppers?

  • Anonymous

    That’s precisely why the students in Bronx Science are doing well in spite of the upheavals there.

  • ActualStudent

    but ask any student who actually went to the school…

    They aren’t a small segment.

  • BK

     Sorry Tim but i have to agree with Ray. Do you know what a Network Leader is? And does anyone realize that a lot of them are being PUSHED to be principals and leave their Network jobs?

  • Nycdoenuts

    And I’d just like to add, given that Networks aren’t held to any apparent accountability standards, it is quite impossible for her to have been a failure as a network leader.

    (And speaking only for myself, I never implied that she was. Only that Tweed send to be making a habit of promoting network leaders down to principals. I think this us the fourth time they’ve done it this year)

  • guest

    I am glad she was selected, as she is an excellent choice. As Ms. Zhang has stated that she is applying for the position under C30, we need to stop the harranging and let her get to work and do her job!

  • Former Teacher

    If Network Leaders are being pushed into becoming principals, then another reorganization is imminent.  From what I understand, NYC being considered one district, is not sustainable.

  • 123

    How is it surprising that she didn’t know? 
    Teenagers keep lots of secrets from their parents, and a group of cheaters is not necessarily a topic that comes up during dinner conversations.

  • Anon

     Up from network leader would be “Cluster Leader”.  8 networks make up a cluster.

  • Chongwangliu

    She’s a great pick by Walcott.  She looks the part, which is important for the DOE now since they are regarded as jokes.  The oriental visual is a likeable choice.  Who cares if she’s talented, she’s a former network leader which is a fake position, so she knows how to b.s.  Good for her.  We need more orientals to lead our schools!!

  • Anonymous

    I must know the type of people who didn’t cheat. Like stick with like.

  • Anonymous

    It’d be hard for a principal to create substantiated grounds in order to fire a teacher who mistreats the principal’s kid.

  • ActualStudent

    It’s surprising because she was on the PTA, and the PTA should know about school-wide scandals that happen.

    @furtgo:twitter, if you didn’t see cheating all around you when you went to Stuy, then you are just as stuylin’ said, either lying or dangerously oblivious.I’m thinking it’s the former.

  • Ray Brower

    It’s not another reorganization, the powers that currently be are placing their loyal sycophants from the networks into more traditional positions in hopes that they’ll survive when the next Mayor rids the system of the Bloomberg waste. Their motives are twofold: rewarding their relatives, friends, and those who refused to criticize their failed policies AND they’re hoping to maintain a presence after Bloomberg is gone. It’s sinister.

  • Guest

    Very shortsighted of you to stereotype all teachers that work in schools in low-income areas as idiotic. So you can evaluate teachers based on a few visits? You have no idea how challenging it is to teach day in and day out in a struggling school. You went to Stuy and never had to deal with any behavioral issues. I went to one of the worst high schools in NY and now I teach at another school that is deemed bad. Did you honestly think that teachers at schools like Stuyvesant and BK Tech are any better than the teachers teaching at the bad schools? Flip flop the teachers in those schools and the students in both schools will stay about the same. You could put a monkey in front of the kids at Stuyvesant and those kids will do their work. Try getting 34 kids that are at least four or five reading levels behind to read Shakespeare, solve equations and analyze DBQs. The teachers in these “bad” schools work harder than most and want to see the kids succeed. I will admit that there are some teachers who just aren’t cut out for teaching but you are completely off base in your comment.

  • Anonymous

    They ARE a small segment.  I guess I’m “dangerously oblivious” as well.

  • ActualStudent

    paul4321, assuming you were a student, it’s much more likely that you are lying, and not dangerously oblivious.

    With the exception of teachers such as Mr.Geller (may he rest in peace) I saw cheating happen in practically every single class I took, and most of the time it was on a class-wide basis.If you walk into the lunchroom during any given period, you will find students copying homework.

    If you go on Facebook, you find students posting answers to take-home tests.I just can’t bring myself to believe someone would be so blind that they missed the cheating that went on in stuy on a daily basis.

  • Lolway

    The kids who went to cram schools and the kids that went to these select middle schools are often the same kids. These middle schools were nothing special, it is largely the parents pushing their children to attend and work hard in the cram schools that get results.

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