The new chancellor-designate, Cathie Black has emerged from seclusion to offer clues of what the priorities of her administration might be: taking aim at teacher tenure, and getting teachers off the city payroll who don't have regular classroom assignments.

After keeping quiet for a few weeks after Mayor Mike Bloomberg nominated her, Black gave a long interview with WABC news and met with the New York Daily News editorial board. She told WABC news: "I cannot imagine at age 25, 24 saying to someone you have a lifetime guarantee to this position, all you have to do is show up every day."  Of course, no teacher has a lifetime guarantee of employment--they can be laid off in times of budget cuts--but it is also true that it's difficult to fire unionized teachers who have tenure. It seems clear that modifying the teachers' contract with regard to tenure is one of her goals.

Black told the Daily News she wants to scrap the requirements that she make layoffs based on seniority. She also wants to be able to get rid of teachers in the so-called "absent teacher reserve" or ATR pool.  The ATR pool is made up of teachers who lost their jobs when their schools were closed.  These teachers are still on the city payroll, even though they haven't found new positions. They are mostly assigned to work as substitutes when regular teachers are sick.  "The idea that a large number of people are getting full employment and benefits for sitting around not doing a whole lot...we can't afford it," she told the Daily News.

And she'd like to make public teachers' ratings, a controversial issue that is being raised in court today.

Black's inexperience with the schools and lack of knowledge of the city's geography is apparent -- the Daily News said she thought she had visited a school in Bayside, Queens, when in fact she had been to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. There will undoubtedly be more such stumbles as she learns her way around the city schools. But she appears to be finding a voice for what she thinks is wrong with teacher tenure and other rules affecting the city's educators.