Public’s Role in Selection of Schools Chief Becomes Issue

In Chicago, two finalists for the city’s top education post appeared on a public affairs television program, then at a candidates forum on cable TV.

In Seattle, superintendent hopeful John Henry Stanford was grilled for hours in a middle school auditorium by parents, students and education activists. Over the next two nights, his competitors received the same once-over.

Now the trend of parading out would-be school chiefs is hitting the Los Angeles Unified School District. A proposal coming before the school board Monday calls for televised question-and-answer sessions in mid-April with each of up to five finalists for the superintendent’s job.

But whether that fulfills promises of a public role in the interview process, made soon after Supt. Sid Thompson announced his resignation a year ago, is disputed.

To Mike Roos, who heads the reform group LEARN, it does not go far enough. The broader the public review, Roos said, the more candidates will be forced to trade education platitudes such as “every child can learn” for specifics such as “in my first 100 days, I will. . . .”

To the executive director of the Assn. of California School Administrators, public exposure in one city can mean public humiliation--and an angry school board--back home for those not hired.

“A great relationship can suddenly go sour,” said Tom Giugni, a former superintendent who has aided numerous searches.

While the debate over the process is dominating discussion at L.A. Unified headquarters, it’s far from the only political battle facing the school board as the search for a superintendent nears an end.

Board members must grapple with three fundamental questions raised in other cities: Does the ethnicity of the superintendent matter in a district where 89% of students are minorities and 68% are Latino? Is it a job best held by a career educator? And, if so, do they choose someone from inside or outside the district?

The case of Bertha Pendleton has become a justification for not opening up candidate reviews. Pendleton, superintendent of San Diego city schools, returned from an interview in Dallas earlier this year and found that her school board had launched a search for her replacement. Board members later agreed to hold off until June to begin looking for a replacement for Pendleton, whose contract expires in 1998.

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Pendleton describes the incident as a miscommunication with her board, rather than a damnation of the public process, saying, “The public needs to be involved.”

Opening up the process here has been a monthlong crusade for Roos and others who advocate at least four public superintendent forums around the district. Disappointed that administrators have instead proposed seven smaller invitation-only sessions downtown, which would be televised on the district’s channel, they plan to take their plea directly to the board Monday.

“They’re thinking on a very, very small scale,” Roos said, that cuts out “a wide variety of individuals who really do care.”

Administrators bristle at that, saying this has been the most open selection process ever in the district. Compared with recent urban searches across the nation, Los Angeles falls in the middle: between districts in Florida, where by law all applicants’ names are public, and districts such as Louisville’s, where the school board selected five finalists blindly--without knowing their names, races, genders or current positions.

But how much does the public want to be involved? In Los Angeles, tiny turnouts--usually a half-dozen people--have been the rule at 31 public hearings on the superintendent selection process.

The purpose of expanded public participation remains unclear. Is it to influence the choice? Or to make candidates aware of constituents’ burning issues? Is it a test of the finalists’ poise? Or merely public relations theater, which at best would improve community support for the chosen candidate?

Unless a candidate commits a major faux pas, the public questioning is unlikely to alter the outcome, said Jerome T. Murphy, dean of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.

“It’s partly symbolic,” Murphy said. “But unless you have some kind of public process, you get the, ‘There they go again, big government’ and so on.”

So far, only three candidates have confirmed their interest: insider Ruben Zacarias, the deputy superintendent who began as a district teacher more than 30 years ago, and outsiders Matt Dunkley, a British educator, and William Siart, the former CEO of First Interstate Bank.

When the district announced this month that it had 27 applicants--plus those recruited by a search firm--school officials said they did not know the candidates’ race or ethnicity. Yet debate during the past year suggests that will be an issue among school board members when the list of finalists is provided April 10.

Historically, the ethnicity debate in big-city districts has focused on the need for black candidates. But in recent years similar arguments--that a minority superintendent would have more cultural sensitivity, be better-equipped to ease racial tensions and provide a ready mentor for minority students--are being made about Latino candidates in cities with growing Latino populations, like Los Angeles and New York.

Today, there are more minorities than whites heading the nation’s 50 largest school districts, according to Michael Casserly, director of the Council of the Great City Schools. Twenty-two superintendents are black and seven are Latino, he said.

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Casserly said he believes a superintendent should speak Spanish in a place like Los Angeles, where a majority of public school parents speak that language.

The insider-versus-outsider debate, meanwhile, often boils down to whether things are going well in a district or whether things are going badly, fueling public pressure for change.

By the measure of student scores on standardized tests, Los Angeles Unified has slid in the past five years from already shockingly low levels. But in setting the criteria for a superintendent, the board seemed optimistic about the district’s course, saying it wanted the new person to forge ahead with goals set by Thompson last year.

While there reportedly are several insider candidates, debate has focused on Zacarias. His backers opposed a nationwide search as wasteful and disrespectful.

The insider/outsider debate is complicated by some board members’ bitterness about the last venture out. Leonard Britton was hired from Florida in 1987 but resigned just three years later after a contentious fight with the teachers union.

Yet Britton’s union-backed successor, 38-year insider and then-Deputy Supt. William Anton, left in a huff after just 26 months.

Turning to outsiders, including those with no experience as education administrators, has gained in popularity across the country. The search firm hired in Los Angeles is known for its nontraditional candidates, including Seattle’s Stanford, a retired Army general.

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The vogue of considering non-educators is thought to have started in 1991, when Milwaukee grabbed headlines by hiring social services administrator and district critic Howard L. Fuller.

Taking that a step further, Minneapolis hired a consulting firm to manage its district three years ago. The team billed itself as a public sector fix-it service, wearing its lack of nitty-gritty schools knowledge like a badge of honor.

“We could walk in with different expectations because our expectations hadn’t been shaped by what had been the practice,” said Laurie Ohmann, vice president of the management team.

At the other extreme is the case of Pendleton, the San Diego superintendent thrust into damage control by her public interview in Texas. In 1993, Pendleton--then with four decades in the San Diego district--was picked without any public review or serious consideration of anyone else.