Shael Polakow-Suransky now has a Wikipedia page

Shael Polakow-Suransky now has a Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shael_Polakow-Suransky.  What a fascinating background!

Shael Polakow-Suransky, 38 in late 2010, a former teacher and principal, was due to be named the chief academic officer of the New York City Public Schools. The appointment was part of a compromise after Mayor Michael Bloomberg nominated a business executive with almost no educational experience, Cathie Black, as chancellor in 2010. As academic officer Polakow-Suransky will be second-in-command to the chancellor, and will oversee teaching, learning and accountability. Black was required to obtain a waiver of qualifications from the New York State Education Department Commissioner David M. Steiner and the waiver was conditioned on a concurrent appointment of a qualified academic officer. Polakow-Suransky was named and the waiver was granted.^[1][2][3]

Polakow-Suransky was previously the deputy chancellor for accountability in New York, the largest school district in the nation^{[citation needed]}. He started in the district as a mathematics teacher, was then assistant principal at Bread and Roses Integrated Arts High School in Harlem and then founding principal of an innovative school, Bronx International High School, designed to educate recent immigrants.^[4]

[edit] Personal

Born in South Africa to anti-apartheid parents who emigrated to Michigan in 1973, Polakow-Suransky attended Ann Arbor's alternative Community High School, studied as an undergraduate at Brown University, earned a master's degree in educational leadership from Bank Street College of Education and in 2008 "was a fellow at the Broad Superintendents Academy, a training program founded by the philanthropist Eli Broad that has been a catalyst for the new wave of education reformists."^[4]. He was married to Brown University classmate, Brienin Bryant, an actress who died last year of breast cancer. ^[5] They had no children.^[4]

Sasha Polakow-Suransky, an editor at Foreign Affairs, is his younger brother.^[4]