KNIGHTDALE -- Recent actions taken by the Wake County school board majority in their effort to hire a new school superintendent mark the next major change to our school system. They have hired an expensive search firm that is not education-focused, changed the superintendent's job description (eliminating a requirement for experience in education) and dropped out of the N.C. School Boards Association.
It is pretty clear that they are going to hire a non-educator as the school system's CEO. And I bet that sounds OK to a lot of people, including smart friends of mine.
Proponents make this argument: our school system has thousands of employees and a $1 billion budget; therefore, it is a business and needs an experienced business person to run it, or perhaps a great military leader.
That sounds good to the casual observer, but it is a bad idea.
As a CPA, I appreciate cost-effectiveness and efficiency, and when I was a Wake County Board of Education member I looked for ways to reduce non-classroom spending. That's what good business people do.
But non-classroom spending - utilities, transportation, supplies, repairs, food, etc. - is less than 20 percent of the budget. More than 80 percent of the overall expense is in employee compensation, and 95 percent of the employees are in the schools. Obviously, major savings could only come from school personnel.
Thus an experienced business person likely could find savings mainly in the non-classroom side of the education "business." However, the Wake system already has a lean, non-classroom side of the business. And it has David Neter, an experienced CPA/MBA who has been running that side for four years now.
On the much more important classroom side of things, the State of North Carolina controls education. Teachers must follow the state-mandated curriculum. Their students take state tests, which are used to measure the student's progress and the teacher's effectiveness.
Principals, who run the school operations, can influence teachers in a lot of ways. They can inspire them to work extra hard, put in more hours, reach out to problem students and do those things that great teachers do to help students. But unlike a business person, they can neither pay their best teachers more or get rid of the ones who do not perform. They can only recommend hiring and firing teachers.
Teachers are protected from business-like employment practices. That might not sit well with business people, but the legislature does control that completely. Firing a teacher after his or her probationary period can be done, but it is a challenge with many "due process" layers, from the principal to the school board.
And it is not as if we have an abundance of unemployed great teachers ready to take the places of those few who need replacing. The great-teacher shortage is a complex problem all its own.
So what does the superintendent do, since educating children is the bottom line for his/her job?
The superintendent reinforces what the principal does daily, by spending time in schools and classrooms, inspiring the teachers, listening to their concerns, finding planning time, fighting for pay raises and aligning resources to help them do a better job educating children - not making widgets. And he/she can select and lead great principals to do their job well.
So why would a principal or teacher be excited and motivated to work for a superintendent with no education experience, who has never led teachers, taught children nor worked around or through the state bureaucracy? Do you see the problem now?
A business or military type CEO will have no credibility with educators and will not effectively lead them. If you were an educator who worked for pay lower than you're worth, would you trust and follow a CEO who has no experience in the classroom?
That's about as likely as business people following a great teacher. And principals and teachers know that generally a new superintendent stays in that position five years or less, even if he or she is good. Why would teachers be inspired to change what they know how to do for someone with no experience and a short time-frame? They will not.
The cost to our community will be great. Assume four years of frustration by all parties and no improvements. There will be a lot of stuff that will make teachers' jobs more difficult and the quality of education for all children will suffer.
The school board majority is making great progress on the way to our becoming just like all the other excellent urban school systems in the country. Anybody know of one?
Tom Oxholm, a local businessman, was a member of the Wake County Board of Education from 1999 to 2003.
