Education Week - May 15, 2013 - 10

MAY 15, 2013

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SUPERINTENDENT SEARCHES

ATLANTA | Erroll B. Davis Jr.
48,000 students

At least 17 well-known districts are—or are expected to be—looking for new
permanent schools chiefs. Search statuses are accurate as of May 10.

The Atlanta school board is looking for a replacement for
Mr. Davis, who has headed the district since the retirement
of Beverly Hall last year amid a cheating scandal.

BALTIMORE
Andrés A. Alonso
85,000 students
BOSTON | Carol R. Johnson
57,000 students
The Baltimore school board will select a
permanent replacement for Mr. Alonso, who
announced his retirement this month. Tisha
Edwards (not shown) will serve as interim
superintendent.

The Boston school board is searching for a
replacement for Ms. Johnson, who is retiring
after six years. The mayorally appointed board will
likely wait until after city elections this fall to hire a
permanent superintendent.

COLUMBUS, OHIO
Gene T. Harris
50,000 students

The Columbus school board postponed a search
for a permanent replacement for Ms. Harris.
Deputy Superintendent John Stanford or an
interim will run the district in the meantime. The
delay comes after the state threatened action in
the wake of a cheating scandal.

DETROIT | Roy Roberts
55,000 students (including charter schools)
Mr. Roberts, the state-appointed emergency
manager, announced that he will step down this
month. The governor is expected to announce a
replacement before the end of the school year.

The governor and
the state education
commissioner announced
a takeover of Camden’s
schools in March. The
school board had been
looking for a replacement
for Ms. Young, but the
state will now appoint a
new leader. Reuben F.
Mills is interim.

A new state-appointed
board is looking
for a permanent
replacement for
Mr. García, the
superintendent who
was imprisoned after
being convicted of
two counts of fraud.
Vernon L. Butler is
serving as interim
superintendent.

MEMPHIS, TENN.
Kriner Cash
105,000 students

The newly unified school board of the Memphis
and Shelby County school systems recently
suspended its search for a superintendent until
2014-15. Dorsey E. Hopson II, who replaced
Mr. Cash, will continue as interim chief of the
merged districts until then.

NEW ORLEANS | Darryl C. Kilbert
14,000 students (direct-run schools) 8,000 (charter)
The Orleans Parish school board is looking for a
permanent leader to replace Mr. Kilbert. Interim
Superintendent Stan Smith has been on the job
for a year. The small district may regain control
of some former schools now run by the state’s
Recovery School District.

NEW YORK
Dennis M. Walcott
1.1 million students

CAMDEN, N.J.
Bessie LeFra Young
13,700 students
CLARK COUNTY, NEV. | Dwight D. Jones
311,000 students
The Clark County school board is searching for
a permanent superintendent to step in by 201314. Interim Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky in
March replaced Mr. Jones, who left two years
before his contract expired, for family reasons.

David Goldman/AP-File
From left to right: Stephen Voss for Education
Week-File, Dina Rudick/The Boston Globe/
Getty-File, Akira Suwa/The Philadelphia Inquirer-File,
David Becker/Las Vegas Review-Journal-File

EL PASO, TEXAS
Lorenzo García
64,000 students

INDIANAPOLIS | Eugene G. White
30,000 students
The Indianapolis school board is searching for
a permanent replacement for Mr. White, who
announced his departure in January. Peggy
Hinckley is interim superintendent.

Schools Chancellor
Walcott has not
announced any intention
to leave his post, but a
mayoral election this fall
means that the district
may have a new leader
next year. Mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg, who
appointed Mr. Walcott, is
not seeking re-election.

From left to right: Eric Albrecht/ The Columbus
Dispatch/AP-File, Carlos Osorio/AP-File, Ruben R.
Rmirez/he El Paso Times/AP-File, Charlie Nye/The
Indianapolis Star/AP-File

EDUCATION WEEK

OAKLAND, CALIF. | Tony Smith
35,000 students
Superintendent Smith resigned in April, citing
family reasons. Acting Superintendent Gary Yee
was appointed for the 2013-14 school year while
the school board searches for a replacement.

From left to right: Nikki Boertman/Memphis
Commercial Appeal/Zuma-File, Chuck Burton/
AP-File, Mike Groll/AP-File, Jessica Olthof/San
Francisco Chronicle-File

FOCUS ON: SUPERINTENDENTS

Districts Seeking to Fill a Spate of Vacancies at the Top
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

such as a state takeover or district
merger; and,
•In Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio;
and El Paso, Texas, new leaders
are needed to take the helm of
school systems that have been
through major cheating scandals.
Whether as an indicator of change
or of commitment to a path, “superintendents become the representation of what the reform [plan in a
district] is about. In selecting the
next superintendent in these districts, we’re sending a very strong
signal in terms of the direction of
the district,” said Kenneth Wong,
a professor of education at Brown
University.
The search for a new leader can
prompt a board or mayor to ask,
“Are you pursuing the right reforms for the right reasons?” said
Michael D. Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the
Great City Schools, in Washington.

Seasonal Churn
The number of vacancies is not
in itself unusual, said Mr. Casserly. Superintendents tend to stay
in urban districts for three to four
years. And spring is when many

leaders announce their intentions
for the upcoming school year.
His organization usually sees
between eight and 12 of its members searching for new leaders each
year. (This year, there are 10 so far.)
Andrés Alonso, who announced
last week that he will retire after
six years as Baltimore’s superintendent, said there has been speculation every year since he arrived that
the high-profile leader would be departing for a bigger city. He is leaving instead to become a professor of
practice at Harvard University and
to care for his aging parents.
But that churn at the top is detrimental for districts striving for
improvements that take time to implement, said Daniel A. Domenech,
the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, in Alexandria, Va.
Boards searching for new district leaders have to make sure a
candidate is suited to the district’s
particular challenges, Mr. Casserly
said. Those challenges range from
cyclical duties, such as contract negotiations and bond levies, to the
more unusual, such as a court order
or a scandal.
In Boston, for instance, a new
leader will have the task of implementing the city’s first new student-

assignment plan in decades, said
Michael D. O’Neill, the chairman of
the Boston school committee.
In Memphis, a new leader in
2014-15 must preside over a newly
merged school system that includes
schools from the neighboring suburban district in Shelby County.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Columbus,
and El Paso, new leaders will need
to help regain community trust after
widely publicized scandals alleging
or involving cheating by teachers or
administrators on student tests.

Chains of Command
State- and city-level involvement
in the governance of many urban
districts—through arrangements
like mayoral control or state takeovers—means that superintendent
searches can be slowed or shaped by
outside political factors.
“With mayoral involvement or
state involvement [in school districts], you have a more complex
government arrangement. The new
breed of superintendent has to have
the skill set and knowledge base
and hopefully some experience in
working across government agencies,” said Mr. Wong.
In Boston, where Superintendent Carol R. Johnson is retiring

after six years, longtime Mayor
Thomas M. Menino, a driving force
in school improvement efforts over
his 20 years as mayor, is also not
seeking re-election.
Mr. O’Neill said that the school
board will likely wait until a new
mayor is elected to select a permanent superintendent.
In Camden and Prince George’s
County, incoming leaders will be the
first to navigate new governance
structures.
Camden’s school board had been
searching for a permanent chief
since last year. But a state takeover early in April puts the state
squarely in charge of finding that
person.
In Prince George’s County, the
school board already had been
searching for a permanent superintendent to replace William R. Hite
Jr. when the Maryland legislature
made key changes to the district’s
governance.
The new law shifts the responsibility for picking the board’s chairman and vice chairman and the district leader—newly dubbed a chief
executive officer and vested with
new powers, such as the authority
to close schools—into the hands of
the county executive. The executive
will choose the district ceo from a

group of candidates selected by a
state-appointed committee.
Given such varied governance
structures, running a school system
“takes enormous understanding of
the local context,” said Mr. Alonso,
the departing Baltimore chief. “In
many cities, there’s a variability
and complexity to how districts are
organized. It’s no longer standardized,” he said.

Complex Structures
His district, New York City, and
New Orleans, for instance, have
reinvented themselves as “portfolio
districts” emphasizing school-level
autonomy. Rising numbers of charter schools complicate district management in other districts as well.
In Detroit, Indianapolis, Memphis, and New Orleans, the public
school landscape includes state-run
schools, charter schools, and regular public schools.
Andy Smarick, a Lawrenceville,
N.J.-based partner at Bellwether
Education Partners, a consulting
organization, suggested that in
some urban districts, the timing
may be right for new leaders to
push districts even further toward
shrinking their central offices and
decreasing the number of schools

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Education Week - May 15, 2013

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