Carmen Farina is NYC's Next Schools-Chancellor

Carmen Farina, a former teacher and principal and a longtime advocate of early childhood education, was tapped Monday by New York City's incoming mayor Bill de Blasio to lead the nation's largest public school system.

Farina, a former deputy chancellor of city schools, has been a longtime adviser to Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and helped inform his education platform, including his signature proposal to offer universal pre-kindergarten and expanded after-school programs for middle school students.

De Blasio will take office Jan. 1, becoming the first mayor in recent memory to preside over the five boroughs while having a child in public schools; his son attends a Brooklyn high school.

Farina will take over the school system, which educates more than 1.1 million students, at a crucial juncture.

Farina, 70, has held several posts within the city school system. She was once a teacher at Public School 29 in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn and later a principal at P.S. 6, a high-achieving school on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

It was there that she first met de Blasio. They began working together in 2001 after Farina moved to Brooklyn's District 15 school board, of which de Blasio was a member. De Blasio, who lives in the Park Slope neighborhood, sent both of his children to a school within Farina's district.

She de-emphasized using standardized testing as a major factor in measuring performance, a stance that clashed with the Department of Education's central office. De Blasio has long railed against strictly "teaching to the test."

Farina also created several new, small middle schools within District 15, a tactic de Blasio has praised. The district soon became regarded as one of the most innovative and in the city.

She became deputy chancellor under Joel Klein, Bloomberg's first chancellor. She retired in 2006 but supplied informal guidance to de Blasio's mayoral campaign.

The New York Times first reported the planned appointment.

De Blasio wants to fund his universal pre-kindergarten program by raising taxes on wealthy New Yorkers, a plan that would need approval in Albany. The state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have been noncommittal.

Farina replaces Dennis Walcott, Bloomberg's third chancellor.