Eric Nadelstern, the city's chief executive of the empowerment initiative, was questioned by the New York City Council on why the evidence for success showed little or no progress. 

City lawmakers yesterday harshly criticized the Bloomberg administration’s plans to give many more public school principals wider autonomy in September, telling a top city schools official that there was not enough evidence of success among 322 principals who received additional authority this academic year to justify expanding the program. (New York Times, March 6, 2007).

I have worked with Eric and found him to be an excellent advocate for schools. He is the famous principal of International high school who took that school right to the top as a model for how to handle hundreds of students with different languages and support their success. Under that initiative, principals who agree to meet student performance targets are largely freed from the oversight of superintendents.

“We’re still looking for results,” said Councilman John Liu, a Queens Democrat, demanding that Mr. Nadelstern provide data supporting his claims of improved attendance and graduation rates in the empowerment schools. “You keep touting the success, and we don’t see the success.” (New York Times, March 6, 2007).

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