Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford professor and education researcher.
Kaya Henderson, District of Columbia schools chancellor.
Joshua Starr, Montgomery County, Md., superintendent.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Chicago schools CEO.
Carmen Farina, former deputy chancellor in New York City.
Kathleen Cashin, member of New York’s state board of regents.
Andrés Alonso, Harvard education professor and former Baltimore schools CEO.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Those eight names have been in heavy rotation (with varying degrees of seriousness) in the New York and education media for being on Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s short list for the city’s next schools chancellor.
De Blasio, both in the campaign and in the weeks since his election, has made clear that he plans to depart from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s record of closing down underperforming schools and promoting rapid charter school expansion, which makes some of the rumored candidates—Henderson, Byrd-Bennett, and perhaps even Alonso—seem less probable.
Rick Hess had this to say about the prospect of a Randi Weingarten chancellorship.
Though de Blasio himself has been mum, The New York Times reported last week that Starr and Henderson were top contenders, along with Farina and Cashin.
Darling-Hammond’s name was the latest to surface. Valerie Strauss reported in her Answer Sheet blog on the Washington Post‘s website that the job was hers for the taking, but that she declined. The professor issued a statement Monday saying she wasn’t offered the job, nor did she seek it, according to the Post.