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Hail to the School Chiefs

Big cities are tapping a broader, more business-oriented talent pool to run their troubled--and politically charged--school systems

Big cities are tapping a broader, more business-oriented talent pool to run their troubled--and politically charged--school systems

When Joel Klein took charge of New York City's schools on August 19, there was no mistaking the symbolism. If Klein could take on a leviathan such as Microsoft Corp. as an anti-trust lawyer--something he did as assistant U.S. attorney general during the Clinton administration--he could certainly handle reforming the nation's largest school district. Klein is a new actor to the school stage, but the storyline is becoming increasingly familiar: Cities are turning to people from outside the education establishment to run school systems.

Since Minneapolis experimented with hiring a consultant to run its schools in 1993, at least a dozen cities have turned to "nontraditional" superintendents. Seattle, New Orleans, Jacksonville and Washington, D.C., hired military figures. Chicago and Baltimore tapped financial officers. San Diego hired a federal prosecutor and Los Angeles, a former governor.

Cities are looking for fresh blood to tackle one of the toughest, most politically charged job titles in public service. "Particularly in very large urban districts, there's a growing sense that the superintendent's job is about politics and management as much as it is about education," says Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.

The non-educators have had some success, none more than in Seattle. In 1995, Seattle hired John Henry Stanford, a former Army general who later died in office and was replaced by Joseph Olchefske, a former investment banker. Both won wide acclaim for improving instruction along with test scores while trimming fat from the schools budget. Most important, they compensated for their biggest weakness--their lack of classroom experience--by surrounding themselves with knowledgeable educators.

San Diego took that idea to a new level in 1998 when it split the top schools job essentially in two. Alan Bersin, the federal prosecutor who served as "border czar" on immigration and drug issues, became the school CEO, while a position akin to "chief academic officer" went to a school reformer from New York City. National experts credit Bersin for firing languid principals and focusing on improving teaching. Locally, he's more controversial. Teachers and principals criticize his management style as heavy-handed. Bersin's two opponents on the five-member school board are always one vote away from ousting him.

In his first two years as superintendent of the Los Angeles school system, Roy Romer's political skills have won him support from the school board. Just this June, the board voted unanimously to extend the former Colorado governor's contract through 2005. It's too early to rate Romer's performance, but even the Los Angeles Times, which at first called him a "bad fit" for the schools, is upbeat about him--for now. Romer won a 15 percent pay hike for teachers, something that was needed to attract more and better teachers to Los Angeles. Test scores in the city's elementary and middle schools are rising.

In other cities, non-educators have found out why urban superintendents get chewed up and spit out an average of once every two-and-a-half years. Previous hires in Baltimore, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., found they either lacked the drive to take on unwieldy urban school districts or fell prey to school board politics. That's a fate Joel Klein will try to avoid in New York. Klein has the strong support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a public that seems willing to give him a shot. Soon enough, he will be able to judge which is harder: educating 1 million kids or fighting Bill Gates.

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