The funeral for former New Orleans schools superintendent Anthony Amato will be held Tuesday from 10 a.m. to noon at St. Lawrence the Martyr Church, 2525 Maine Ave. in Metairie.

Amato, 66, died Dec. 2 of  complications resulting from a two-year battle with multiple myeloma, or plasma cell cancer, his wife, Iris Amato, said Monday.

Anthony Amato was superintendent of New Orleans Public Schools from 2003 to 2005. Since 2010, he was head of school at the International High School of New Orleans. In his 40-year public-education career, he headed school systems in New York City; Hartford, Conn.; Kansas City, Mo.; and Stockton, Calif.

His 10-year New York tenure was his longest, and he was praised for raising student achievement in the Washington Heights district. With the other systems, he served just one or two years, with school officials pressuring him to resign or terminating him outright.

His New Orleans tenure, too, was controversial, with the school board moving to fire him only a year after his arrival. A federal judge stopped the move, although Amato went on to resign in 2005 after the Orleans board went bankrupt. Still, supporters point out that he boosted test scores in the city’s struggling schools, and staff at International High School have praised his work there.

The Tuesday ceremony is open to the public, Iris Amato said.