GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

In my post this morning, I reported that some people are worrying that the administrative reshuffling announced today could spell yet another dramatic twist in the way schools are managed and supported. Not so, according to Eric Nadelstern, whose new title under the reshuffling — don’t call it a reorganization! — is chief schools officer.

Unlike past administrative changes, this one is happening for the sake of cost-cutting and bureaucracy-slimming, not because of any departure in ideology. Nadelstern told me in a quick telephone call that the change is actually a “validation” of the Department of Education’s last reorganization, in the spring of 2007. That reorganization, the department’s third major overhaul under Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, replaced traditional bureaucratic management layers like superintendents with a new nexus of “support” organizations that are supposed to be helpful rather than punitive. The support groups are also supposed to work like a marketplace, with schools being able to buy the services of any one of them, at prices the groups determine.

Nadelstern’s new job has him overseeing all these support groups, from the ones within the department (called LSO’s) to the private ones outside of it (PSO’s) to the Empowerment network he created, in a single office. Previously, the organizations had reported to different offices within the DOE. (more…)

Eric Nadelstern will take on expanded duties. (Via Cody Castro)

A top schools official who spearheaded the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to allow private control of some public schools is leaving the Department of Education, in a reorganization that could save the department a significant amount of money — and might or might not signal a new direction for the school system. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced the change to school leaders in a conference call this morning.

The official, JoEllen Lynch, oversaw the department’s transition to allowing schools to affiliate with private management groups like New Visions for Public Schools and CEI-PEA, in lieu of the traditional bureaucracy. The groups, known as PSO’s, were the closest that the Bloomberg administration came to emulating other urban school systems’ privatization efforts, like one in Philadelphia where for-profit management groups competed for control of public schools. Lynch’s office will be headed by another top schools official, Eric Nadelstern, who will maintain his current portfolio of schools affiliated with the Empowerment network.

The reshuffling elevates Nadelstern’s position in the department, a promotion that could elevate his gadfly ideas, too. Officials are selling the change as a way to cut costs amid ballooning concerns about the city’s fiscal prognosis. But some people who work at PSO’s are worrying the change could also be a signal that PSO’s days are numbered, and that the Empowerment network Nadelstern champions as a very lean way to run public schools will overtake them. (more…)