Dive Brief:

• New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) chancellor Richard Carranza is hiring nine executive superintendents, at a cost of at least $2.5 million a year in salaries and fringe benefits, reported the New York Post. A nationwide search is underway. 

• The NYCDOE maintains that the new executives will streamline operations and create a clear line of accountability. Officials say they'll also have a "direct, positive" impact on families, although it wasn't immediately clear how. 
   
• Critics, including the city's former deputy schools chancellor, say the new officials will only bog down the functioning of New York City schools. The nine new hires, to be place when school starts in September, will oversee 31 district superintendents, as well as borough school support center executive directors.

Dive Insight:

New York City principals already lament being tangled in bureacracy, so the addition of a phalanx of "middle managers," one would imagine, would not be received enthusiastically. While there are certainly naysayers who decry the plan as padding bureaucracy, principals have actually expressed a measure of relief. The city's principals union has come out as saying that the new structure may give school leaders a go-to point person who could alleviate the burden of paperwork they're currently under.

The new executive superintendents would act as liaisons between superintendents and field support centers. That, in theory, could smooth the path to principals getting the type of assistance they need, when they need it, without having to go back and forth between two independent entities not known for working together seamlessly. 

It remains to be seen how easy it will be to fill the slots. The unique size and scope of the district, as well as the shadow of doubt about whether the positions will still be there when Mayor de Blasio's term ends, may make recruiting top talent difficult. The size of the NYC DOE, though, is what makes the new slots crucial, Carranza said, because they'll allow principals to know exactly where resources are coming from and "where the buck stops." 

The imminent placement of the executive superintendents in New York City brings to mind the installation of principal supervisors in six urban districts. Those supervisors are increasingly tasked with developing principals as instructional leaders, a goal that the executive superintendents could surely adopt as well. The average number of principals assigned to each principal supervisor, though, is 12, a much lower number than what would be found in an executive superintendent's jurisdiction in New York City. And in the case of the urban districts with the principal supervisors, principals weren't sure who to call upon with questions and requests, a problem that executive superintendents in New York City will hopefully eliminate.

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