The city Department of Education is moving to build a new principal training program, replacing a privately financed project modeled on the ideas of the business guru Jack Welch with an effort funded by taxpayers.

The change comes as the New York City Leadership Academy, which was modeled on a training program Mr. Welch set up when he ran General Electric, reaches the end of its contract with the city this year.

Some old hands in the city schools have ridiculed the academy program, saying its results do not warrant its high costs. Academy figures show that of the nearly 300 people trained by the program, 70% are now serving as New York City principals. An investigation by the New York Post last year concluded that about half of schools headed by graduates of the academy earned Cs, Ds, or Fs on their school report cards.

The Department of Education has heralded the project, citing better results for students, and Chancellor Joel Klein said he hopes a new taxpayer-financed training program will follow in the academy’s mold.

“Leadership is so decisive in school transformation, in making sure that you draw, retain, and support high-quality teachers,” Mr. Klein said. “The Leadership Academy has been a linchpin in that.”

Now that financing is being transferred to the city coffers, a competitive bidding process will determine which group continues the project. The Leadership Academy’s chief of staff, Vivian Brady-Phillips, said the group plans to make a bid, but it is also possible that other candidates will emerge, such as the city-based nonprofit New Leaders for New Schools, a college of education, or the city principals union.

The New Leaders group did not return a request for comment. An official at the principals union said the union might apply for the project.

This is not the first time the Department of Education has moved a privately financed pilot project onto the city budget. In the past, an effort to give principals more autonomy, financed with foundation grants, spawned a larger-scale taxpayer-financed effort, and since then several other projects created through philanthropic gifts have also gone public.

In at least one of those cases, a project to have outside experts write “quality reviews” of schools, the pilot vendor, the British firm Cambridge Education Associates, stayed on when the program expanded, a Department of Education spokeswoman, Melody Meyer, said.

Budget reports filed by the Leadership Academy show that in fiscal year 2007, it spent $9.4 million on three separate projects related to principal training, and Ms. Meyer said salaries for trainee principals, covered by the Department of Education, cost $7.5 million.

Ms. Brady-Phillips said those figures are not a perfect cost estimate, because the city’s request for proposals contains some important differences from academy’s current work.

The academy has produced 277 graduates, 192 of whom are now serving as New York City principals and 35 of whom are assistant principals, Ms. Meyer said.

The number of principals trained by the program dipped in 2007, to 55 from an average of about 75 in previous years, data reported by the academy showed. Research compiled by the Department of Education shows that, three years out of the program, academy graduates post, on average, higher gains in student reading and math scores than principals with three years of experience who did not attend the academy.