Dr. Frank Macchiarola, legendary educator and public servant, dies at 71
Dr. Frank J. Macchiarola, widely admired New York City Public Schools Chancellor under Mayor Ed Koch and most recently Chancellor of St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, died on Tuesday at the age of 71.
Dr. Macchiarola set the standard for leadership across a career that spanned education, law, business and public service. Mayor Koch had proclaimed that Dr. Macchiarola was the “finest Schools Chancellor New York City ever had,” and no one disputed him.
In his five years as Schools Chancellor, from 1978 to 1983, Dr. Macchiarola transformed the city’s disastrous reading and math scores and slashed school crime.
Besides his most recent stint as chancellor of St. Francis College, Dr. Macchiarola also served as dean of Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where he also taught, and professor at both Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and City University of New York.