The New York City Department of Education is the branch of municipal government in New York City that manages the city's public school system. The school system these schools form is the largest system in the United States, with over 1.1 million students are taught in more than 1,400 separate schools. The department covers all five boroughs of New York City.
The department is run by the New York City School Chancellor. The current chancellor is Joel I. Klein, appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002.
Because of its immense size - there are more students in the system than people in eight U.S. states - the New York City public school system is the most influential in the United States. New experiments in education, text book revisions, and new teaching methods often originate in New York and then spread to the rest of the country. To keep track of the large amount of student and school data, the Department uses the powerful Automate The Schools (ATS) system.
