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John White, deputy chancellor in New York City, is leaving to New Orleans.

While Mayor Bloomberg was on the brink of announcing Cathie Black’s departure last night, a deputy chancellor of the New York City Department of Education was boarding a plane — to New Orleans, where tomorrow he will be named superintendent of the Recovery School District.

White’s appointment to lead one of the most-watched education improvement efforts in the country has fallen under the radar in this whirlwind day of education leadership changes in New York. But the move is important: it means one fewer leader at Tweed Courthouse during a transition and a major promotion for White.

White also said the Innovation Zone project he runs in New York would continue. “The work in New York goes on,” he said less than half a day before Black would resign.

He also called New Orleans “the most exciting place for education reform in the country.” ”It’s because of what I’ve learned as an educator and an administrator in New York schools that I have faith about taking what I learned and going elsewhere,” he said. (more…)

Marcia Lyles, the deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, testifying at an Assembly hearing earlier this year.

Marcia Lyles, the head of the city’s teaching and learning department and one of only a handful of veteran educators who reports directly to Chancellor Joel Klein, could be on the brink of leaving the school system. The answer hinges on an announcement tonight by a school board in Delaware, where Lyles and one other candidate are vying for the job of superintendent.

The board of the Christina School District, a semi-urban, 17,000-student district comprising parts of two of Delaware’s three largest cities as well as some suburbs, has narrowed down a cast of contenders to two finalists: a longtime Delaware educator who is now serving as acting superintendent and Lyles, a Harlem native who has worked in the city’s public school system since the 1970s.

Lyles would not confirm that she has been offered the job, but a member of the Christina teachers union, Harrie Ellen Minnehan, told me that rumors are flying in Delaware that Lyles will be announced as the new superintendent tonight — against the desires of teachers and principals, many of whom favor the Delaware candidate. (more…)

Merryl Tisch, sitting next to teachers union vice president Carmen Alvarez at the Manhattan Assembly hearing on mayoral control. (GothamSchools)

Merryl Tisch, a former first-grade teacher and member of one of the city’s most philanthropic families, will head the committee that oversees the state public schools, the Board of Regents, state officials just announced.

The other Regents elected Tisch to the title today at a critical moment for state education efforts. The Education Department in Albany is launching an internal restructuring, and the Regents are searching for a new commissioner to run the department.

Commissioner Richard Mills, who had served 14 years in the job, presiding over an ambitious raising of graduation standards, announced his plans to retire last year. The current Regents chancellor, Robert Bennett, of Buffalo, said he would step down from the position 10 days ago. Tisch has been vice chancellor of the board since 2007 and served on the board since 1996. Her term as chancellor begins April 1.

Though Tisch has been a strong supporter of Mayor Bloomberg, she has also occasionally criticized him and his schools chancellor, Joel Klein. She told the Times last year that she disagreed with Klein’s request for looser regulations on state funds. “Nobody appointed him czar,” she said. She also testified to a committee that mayoral control of the schools, which Bloomberg strongly supports, should be curtailed. I reported her testimony, which was originally secret, at the New York Sun

Yet Tisch’s plans for the state’s public schools, which she laid out in a long statement accepting the new position, sound many similar notes to the Bloomberg administration’s work in New York City. It also echoes the Obama administration’s plans for education. (more…)