Giuliani's poor school marks

"The mayor will always win," said Crew, now superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. "There was no other possible outcome, except for this Rudy to leave. We were both very intense, bullheaded. But I don't hold a grudge."

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Third departure

Around New York, the loss of a third chancellor in less than a decade stirred resentment in some quarters.

"I thought Rudy Crew was a terrific chancellor, a very elegant man," recalled Jacqueline Kamin, then co-chair of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council. "He was mistreated horribly. Giuliani had to be the boss of the room, even if he didn't know anything about education."

By contrast, Badillo, the Giuliani campaign's education advisor, blames Crew for much of the discord, saying he paid lip service to Giuliani but failed to push reforms hard enough.

Giuliani tried to influence the board's next choice for chancellor in early 2000, but the board ignored him and hired Harold O. Levy, a Wall Street attorney. For the first four months of Levy's tenure, Giuliani would not meet or talk with him.

Despite some progress under Crew and Cortines, the system was still in deep trouble. Graduation rates for minorities were below 50%. Test scores had failed to show dramatic improvements. Salaries in the city system were below suburban districts, making recruitment difficult. About 12,000 uncertified teachers were in classrooms to fill critical shortages.

Levy and Giuliani sparred over school funding and over stalled negotiations for a new teachers union contract.

"Giuliani's view was that the union was the enemy," Levy said. "My view was that while I had my differences, the union was public education's most effective advocate in the Legislature."

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Post-Giuliani

After Giuliani left office, a new contract was negotiated that gave teachers a 43% wage increase through 2008 in exchange for more work. Levy added that he had all but eliminated use of uncertified teachers.

"Rudy Giuliani tried to blame teachers for the problems," said Richard Farkas, a former Queens teacher and now vice president of the United Federation of Teachers. "He had no vision. With Bloomberg, we added 30 minutes to the school day and two days to the school year. We doubled math and literacy periods."

Bloomberg has taken large city schools and broken them into smaller units, taking the number of schools from fewer than 1,200 to 1,450 with level enrollment and is giving every principal $150,000 in discretionary spending.