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City officials’ argument to convince State Education Commissioner David Steiner that publishing executive Cathie Black is qualified to be schools chancellor is based on the idea that her managerial skills will be necessary during the coming years’ intense financial pressures.

But in her memoir-cum-business advice guide, “Basic Black,” the chancellor appointee describes her skills as far more attuned to sales and marketing than financial analysis. While she likes the operational side of business, she writes, “too much data and too many spreadsheets make my eyes glaze over.”

In a section of the book called “Power = knowing your strengths and weaknesses,” Black explains that knowing that she prefers broader strategy to rows of numbers has helped her decide which tasks to delegate:

Over the years I’ve taken care to work on that weakness — taking financial management courses, asking for help when I need it, and not being afraid to let the numbers folks do the thing they’re best at. It wouldn’t make sense for me to pretend to be a whiz where I’m not.

Black’s analysis of her own managerial strengths and weaknesses is one of many insights that her 2007 book gives into how she might approach her new job at Tweed Courthouse. (more…)

People who aim to open charter schools will now have to prove that they have support from their community. They’ll also need a plan to attract and retain needy students.

Those are the two biggest changes among a slew of new requirements for charter school applicants that officials at the State University of New York’s Charter School Institute say will focus their attention on schools’ plans to serve needier students. But the new chartering process also retains many elements of the old one, officials said today.

The new process is an addition born from the new state law that more than doubled the number of charter schools allowed in the state. Rather than simply applying for a charter, prospective school leaders must now respond to criteria issued by one of the state’s two main authorizers in the form of a Request for Proposals. SUNY’s draft documents are up for just over a week of public comment before being finalized early next month.

In addition to the new requirements, charter authorizers now have to rank applications based on a new criteria. But Charter School Institute director Jonas Chartock said that it is unlikely to fundamentally change the core commitments of its review process. The institute’s process has been nationally recognized for weeding out weak applications. (more…)