The hiring of a new school superintendent for Wake County is not akin to the Ford Motor Co. trying to lure some executive away from GM, dealing in clandestine meetings, secure phone calls, go-betweens and mysterious meetings on tropical islands. This process is about signing on someone who will be an employee of the public, and whose qualifications members of the public deserve to review and contemplate in comparison to others who seek the job.
Even if only the names of three finalists for the position were released, and those individuals were brought to the community to meet with school officials and parents, it would be valuable to the hiring process.
Chances are it also would boost the credibility of a school board majority that has stirred much controversy with its reversal of a long-respected diversity-in-assignment policy - a move that prompted former Superintendent Del Burns to resign.
Doesn't that majority care about hiring a superintendent who could hit the ground running with the support of parents and people in the community who felt they had at least had a small role in the decision?
Apparently not. Board Chairman Ron Margiotta says releasing the names of finalists is a bad idea. "It would cast aspersions on people. It's not in the best interests of the candidates to say who they are."
First, the chairman's choice of words is curious. Aspersions? In other words, being known as a candidate for superintendent of North Carolina's largest school system would bring someone's integrity or reputation into question? Second, this process isn't about what's in the best interests of candidates. It's about the best interests of the children in the Wake County schools.
The board already has gotten off on the wrong foot with its search, loosening requirements in a way that suggests a preference for someone who is not a career educator. While there may be suitable candidates of that sort, the burden of proof would be on the board as to whether it had found one.
Presenting the finalists to the community allows those individuals' qualifications, whatever they are, to be compared. It builds public confidence in the process, which in this case could quell suspicions among some of the conservative board majority's critics that the ideological fix is in. And it would make the board more accountable for its final decision.
Is that the part that worries the chairman? This is a chance for the majority members to do something that would be a breath of fresh air. Oh, they don't have to do it. And they can make the final call on a superintendent, because they have the votes. Why, then, would they fear opening the process?
As to the argument that some good candidates might not apply if they knew their names would be released before the choice was made, that's not reason enough to close the doors. There will be no shortage of capable people who want the job and will accept the conditions of a hiring process in which at least the finalists were identified. Who knows? Some of them might even applaud it.
