BREAKING: Cathleen Black is OUT as NYC Chancellor

Just caught this off the NY Times page: Cathleen Black is OUT as Chancellor of New York City Public Schools. Apparently this is at the (reluctant) behest of Mayor Bloomberg. You may remember that Black was controversial as a pick from the beginning.

UPDATE: Here's the liveblog from GothamSchools. Clearly NOT expected.

New Jersey Christmas purge

Governor Christie no sooner got back from his Christmas at Disney World than he fired seven county superintendents whose contracts were up:

On Thursday, they received a six-sentence email from Gregg Edwards, the commissioner’s acting chief of staff, that they were out of their $120,000 jobs, effective immediately.
On Monday, a few of the former superintendents were talking publicly, complaining they were never warned of their imminent demise, and, in some cases, indicating they saw themselves as loyal soldiers for the controversial governor.
“Being somewhat naïve, we thought we’d back to work on January 3,” said Trudy Doyle, who served as the Somerset County executive superintendent. "Needless to say, it comes as quite a shock."
The governor’s office said it was the executive branch’s prerogative as to who serves in the three-year posts These have become especially critical positions with Christie planning a full-scale push on his education agenda and a new state commissioner coming on board this month in Chris Cerf.

Christie is pushing the state board of ed to change the requirements for superintendency:

Under the plan, a person seeking the superintendent position in certain districts would need a bachelor's degree from an accredited four-year college and a review by the state education commissioner who would determine whether the candidate has sufficient work experience to lead a district. Three school districts under state control that would be affected by the proposed hiring standards are Newark, Paterson and Jersey City.

 This should sound familiar; after all, if New York City doesn't need a certified superintendent, why should anyone?

Majority in Southern public schools now poor, minority

Really interesting article in the New York Times today reporting that the South is the first region of the country to see a majority of their public school students be minority and a majority also be poor.
(as a side note: it's getting ridiculous to reference "minorities" when we're talking about groups in the majority, don't you think?)

The shift was fueled not by white flight from public schools, which spiked during desegregation but has not had much effect on school demographics since the early 1980s. Rather, an influx of Latinos and other ethnic groups, the return of blacks to the South and higher birth rates among black and Latino families have contributed to the change.