Boston Update

Boston's superintendent search is in full disarray now. Deborah Sims removed her name from consideration, leaving only one of the five shortlisted candidates in the running. Now the Globe is reporting, Hub may not have school chief till Jan.

School officials had previously hoped to have a superintendent in place by June. Now, the search committee expects to come up with a new list of finalists by the end of the summer and bring them to the city for public interviews in September.

The delay is setting off concern among some observers of the school system, who say that efforts to improve city schools are losing momentum. Others are beginning to ask aloud: Is there something undesirable about working in Boston?

My impression is the problem is not Boston, but the process they are using to find candidates. Public leaks and public scrutiny are most likely the real culprits here, even if the candidates deny they were turned off by it. After all, who would admit that they did not want to meet with public scrutiny? Who would admit that they did not want to risk the negative judgement of participating in the public reviews only to fail to get the job? The assortment of lame excuses cited by candidates in the Globe article just reinforces my conjecture.

SFUSD should pay close attention to this debacle. It's too easy to imagine us replicating this train wreck.