Today’s Chronicle has an editorial taking HISD to task for its secretive superintendent search. Good for the Chronicle – except that it’s really late in coming. This has been an issue for weeks now.
Richard Connelly first brought this secrecy to light at the end of September. It took the Chronicle more than two weeks after that to get the story into print. And then, yet another two weeks before the Chronicle‘s Jason Spencer doggedly got on the case and we learned, not only who the candidates are, but what tactics HISD was using to keep the candidates’ identities a secret:
All the candidate interviews are being conducted in secret and trustees have gone through great pains to protect the applicants’ identities. They’ve hidden the candidates in various meeting rooms throughout the HISD headquarters building on Richmond to elude a reporter waiting outside. Four HISD police officers working overtime used their radios to make sure no one was looking when the candidates left, getting into different vehicles from the ones in which they had arrived.
The Chronicle has the bully pulpit in this town and isn’t afraid to use it for Jeff Cohen’s pet causes, but the education of Houston’s children should be at the top of Jeff Cohen’s pet cause list. And I’m not talking about teen summits for tolerance and understanding. The Chronicle should have been all over this secret superintendent search from the beginning.
One last point – using the term “ill-serves” is not grammatically correct:
Since these candidates have no future with their current or former employer, HISD trustees had no reason for holding secret interviews other than keeping the public in the dark. Public knowledge of the interviews harms no one, while secrecy ill-serves parents and taxpayers.
It’s slangy, but not correct. A more appropriate wording would be “while secrecy does not serve parents and taxpayers well.”
Here’s the full editorial:
The Houston Independent School District is ostensibly conducting a nationwide search for the best person to be its next superintendent. The candidates interviewed so far seem not to be from the top rank, and the district’s policy of secrecy keeps the public in the dark without attracting stellar candidates.
The word inside the district is that Interim Superintendent Abe Saavedra is the favorite. Saavedra was groomed for the job and has led the district since Superintendent Kaye Stripling retired in June. Saavedra’s knowledge of the district is a plus, but placing him on the inside track no doubt discouraged some qualified candidates from seeking the job.
Last week HISD trustees interviewed three outside candidates: the superintendents of Pittsburgh and Bridgeport, Conn, and the former superintendent of Tucson, Ariz. The first two are in the last year of a contract that will not be renewed. The former superintendent of Tucson was forced to retire early after the board lost confidence in his leadership.
Since these candidates have no future with their current or former employer, HISD trustees had no reason for holding secret interviews other than keeping the public in the dark. Public knowledge of the interviews harms no one, while secrecy ill-serves parents and taxpayers.
As HISD is one of the nation’s largest school districts, with 211,000 students, trustees must consider candidates with experience in smaller districts. However, the three candidates they considered came from districts that ranged from 28 percent of HISD’s size to 11 percent. No one without the ability to run a large, billion-dollar operation can be successful as HISD superintendent. If a candidate from a large district could not be found, HISD should have enlarged its search to consider candidates from business or academia who have proven executive talents and a commitment to education.
The law calls for HISD to release a list of finalists for the superintendent’s post. HISD is expected to get around the law by releasing the name of a single finalist Wednesday. At least the district should have tried to attract an outside candidate who was on the way up rather than on the way out.
