Oh! I get it. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson was wonderful, we just didn't support her enough. Is that what you're telling us? It had nothing to do with the fact that from day one she told folks that she had the authority and she didn't need (or particularly want) their buy-in. You think the 2010-2011 board was so great, but they were the ones who fired Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. Talk about failing to support the superintendent! That's pretty much the ultimate failure to support, and you LOVED them.

And Raj Manhas before her, was also wonderful. Nevermind the CACIEE report from his own blue-ribbon panel that detailed, blow-by-blow, how he had completely failed to fulfill any of the executive duties. And as for being a good follower, Mr. Manhas worked to undermine the Board he served under.

Joseph Olchefske also suffered from poor support. We should have been totally cool with his $32 million overspend.

Finally, General Stanford. What are you suggesting? That he wouldn't have died if the community had only supported him more?

I'm not going to dispute the idea that leaders need good followers, but none of the last three superintendents ever asked anyone to follow or support them.

Your column is ill-informed and inconsistent. Think first before you write.

In his 1999 book, Victory In Our Schools, the late Seattle Schools Superintendent John Stanford asserted that building a world-class school system not only requires excellence in the classroom and district leadership but also an community focused on advancing student academic achievement. Stanford’s insistence that public and private sector engagement is fundamental to promoting successful student outcomes underscored his larger point: that every citizen is a stakeholder in our district’s mission to provide a world-class educational system for our children.

Community involvement is embedded in the concept of followership. Stanford put it most succinctly: “As superintendent, I would need to work with clergy and ethnic organizations to get them to help instill the value of education in their members. I’d need to work with social-service agencies to encourage them to make it easy for families to access their services. I’d need to work with the media to encourage them to use their tremendous power and influence to broadcast messages that promote educational values. I’d need to work with businesses to get them to invest money and resources in schools. And I’d need to talk to the public everywhere – on street corners and on television, in restaurants and in newspapers, in town meetings and in workplace speeches – to get them excited about what we were doing in schools so they would support our efforts. There have been so many who believe public schools can’t work, but they can and do work when the entire community becomes involved.”

As Robinson rightly observes, unless our entire community embraces the district’s mission to ensure that every child achieves academic success, not even the astute superintendent stands a reasonable chance to cross the finish line, much less grab the baton.

Collin

"The last School Board (2010 - 2011) was one of the best we’ve had in a recent decades. "

Based on what? Their lack of oversight as Maria Goodloe-Johnson plunged this district further and further downhill? Peter Maier's unbelievable action in reading a key report about one of the Potter programs and then keeping it to himself? Ever served on a Board, Pastor Robinson? What would you do if another Board member hid information vital to you doing your job?

You can speculate all you want on why Dr. Enfield is leaving. I sincerely doubt it is the two new Board members. Why? Because there are still 5 incumbents. And if she can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Please. Marty McLaren and Sharon Peaslee are not fire-breathing dragons; they duly elected Board members.

And where is your proof the Board is divided? The new members have been on the job maybe two months.

With united Boards (under Olchefske and MGJ) we had major financial scandals and had to exit the superintendents. That's stability?

I think Seattle will be quite surprised at the number of applicants and the number of quality applicants for the superintendents job. You see, you need to step back and look at the big picture (as superintendents do).

Seattle is an urban district but it's not Detroit or LA. Meaning, it's something a person can wrap their arms around.

Seattle passes its levies and bonds. There is virtually no other big urban district that does that and if you don't think that means something to a superintendent, you'd be wrong.

Seattle supports education in other ways. Again, doesn't happen in other urban districts.

Our PTSAs support education in a big way. They fund 32 FTEs and that's just one part of their support. Other urban districts? Not so much.

As an education activist, the first thing I said to MGJ was "welcome to our district, how can I help?" She ignored me and virtually every person who wanted to help and basically said "my way or the highway." That is an untenable position for any superintendent and her hubris was her undoing.

That so many people DO stand up to the superintendent when we see things going wrong (and we told that superior Board that Pastor Robinson so admires) is the mark of people who care.

And we were right.

What a nonsensical article. Look around. The average stay for an urban school superintendent is 2.5 years! Damn, 5 searches in 16 year? That's 3.2 years. We're doing pretty good!

Ridiculous. The short tenure of most high-flying, well-paid superintendents is, in large part, due to greener pastures as in mo' money. Look at John Covington, just left KC schools in the lurch after, yes, 2.5 yrs to pop up in Detroit where he stands to make $1.5M including bonus and perks. And lo, who does he pick as his lieutenant but Goodloe-Johnson, our ethically-challenged ex-supt. But we should followed her better, huh.

Look at the facts. Enfield's held eight jobs in the last ten years in six different towns. Yeah, she was a keeper.

Oh, come on now. Enfield's desire to align curriculum nearly destroyed successful science pathways such as Bio Technology etc. There are times when the board HAS to step in. Enfield held back the donors of TfA until she was forced to reveal them. I thank the board for holding the Interim accountable. Now, the Interim insists on using an unsound math curriculum that isn't working and putting our kids at risk. Again, it is up to the board to hold the Interim accountable. We have a board for a reason.

The old board failed to hold the Superintedent accountable for having the inability to manage district operations and finances. Old Mr. Potter was the result. The author of this article is ridiculous. The board has ultimate authority for responsibility, and has to be utilized.

Some like to unfairly blame the new board- because they realize the math is crap. Enfield is unwilling to put dollars into new materials. I call Enfield a quitter. I suspect Enfield has the inability to work with others; she has a history of short term employment. I strongly suspect she has another job. So much for her dedication to Seattle's Children. Thanks, Dr. Enfield.

I need to clarify the above statement. The 2010- 2011 board received a State Audit which stated "public assets are at risk". The board extended MGUJ's contract (how thoughtful)..and fired her when the scandal occured. To me, extending MGJ's contract- when she wasn't capable of managing the district is irresponsible.

We so rarely think out of the box. I am wondering what effect it would have to simply eliminate the superintendent and the school board entirely and transfer most of the superintendent's functions to individual school principals and the oversight functions to a parent/teacher committee at each school, maybe with one or two outside members appointed by the mayor or something. There would be some serious downsides to this model, but some serious upsides as well. This is more or less what Finland does, in fact, with its excellent schools.

I would also like to add that it makes no sense to hire a superintendent who is not from the Pacific Northwest. The PNW and Seattle have a peculiar culture that non-Northwesterners are consistently slow to grasp, let alone master.

My favorite out-of-the-box solution is to elect the superintendent to a four-year term and have the school board appointed.

That way we have consistent leadership for four years - possibly eight or twelve. The accountability is with the same person, the superintendent, who has the authority. That would be so much better than the messed-up system we have now in which the accountability is with the board but the authority is with the superintendent. It would also make the role of the Board clearer: they are there for audit, not for leadership. Their job is to police the superintendent - a job that the previous board failed (or, more accurately, refused) to do.

Seattle has a particular problem in its governance because of apathy and passivity both among its so-called leaders and its followers.

But there are special problems, nationwide, in big-city public school systems. Some mayors and councils have taken control of public schools. In some big cities, most notably New York and Los Angeles, non-educators with leadership records in other fields have been called in to run school systems. No need to repeat here the well known criticisms of the education of teachers, focused too often on method rather than substantive content of subject matter; the tyranny in some systems of teacher-union
demands; high turnover among teachers; and the ever growing ratios of
administrators to teachers. Seattle is not alone in seeing its superintendents depart after relatively short stints, either because their performance fell short or because they were fed up with the frustrations they faced in their work.

Seattle schools, as many elsewhere, need the setting and enforcement of performance standards both for teachers and students. That won't happen, though, unless parents, school board members, senior administrators, and taxpayers demand them and make them stick.

I think we all agree that we want to set and maintain high expectations for everyone in our schools - students, teachers, and administrators. That's not in dispute.

We have standards for students and most of the students, particularly in affluent neighborhoods, are meeting those standards. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills on standardized tests.

We have standards for teachers - really, we do - and the vast majority of the teachers are meeting those standards.

We have no explicit standards for administrators - that's a problem. Dr. Enfield had to back away from her plan to fire Martin Floe largely because she could not explain why she wanted to fire him. She could not point to any Standards that he failed to meet.

The other problem is that we do not respond well when students or teachers fail to meet the standards.

Most schools, I'm ashamed to say, take no effective action when students fail to meet the standards. Their teachers are probably making an effort, but classroom teachers have limited time or tools to address the needs of struggling students. These students need support, but they aren't getting it. The industrial school structure (thirty students in a room getting the same lesson at the same time) presents significant constraints. There are a few schools - discouragingly few - who take active and effective steps to address the needs of students who struggle to meet the standards. These schools are lauded (Maple, Mercer, etc.), but their practices are not widely duplicated. The usual response to a struggling student is essentially no response; the student is promoted to the next grade and falls further behind. This typically leads to disengagement, despair, and discipline.

What of teachers who don't meet the standards? Again, while there are a few bright cases in which their principals respond with either needed support or dismissal, the usual response is either no response or a transfer of the teacher to another school where he or she will be someone else's problem.

The solution to all of this is not in the superintendent's office but in the principal's office. The principal can create a school structure and culture that allows for a response to struggling students. The principal is the person who needs to respond to a teacher who is not meeting standards. And it is absence of standards for administrators - starting with principals - which allows these failures to continue.

We have standards for teachers and students, Mr. Van Dyk. If they are not working it is because they are not enforced. They are not enforced because we do not have standards for administrators.

Here's a definition of leadership: going first. Accountability needs to be applied from the top down, not from the bottom up. The first person in the school district who needs to be held accountable is the superintendent, then the "C" level executives, then the middle managers, then the principals, then the teachers, and only after all of them, the students. The problem with education reform in Washington is that they promised to do it that way and then they did it backwards. The first people - and so far the only people - held accountable with real consequences are the students. They don't graduate if they don't pass the tests. Yet these are the very people who have the least power and authority to influence the system. The next people who are getting held accountable are the teachers, the second least powerful people in the system. That's exactly backwards.

The first person held accountable needs to be the Superintendent of Public Instruction, then the school district superintendents, then the principals. Then - and only then - can the teachers be held accountable. Then, finally, when everyone else is doing their job properly, the students can be held accountable.

I will call it leadership when I see someone who is willing to go first.

I just wish he would have gone a bit further to call out the nutjobs who write the Save Seattle Schools blog, pretty sure that's who he was talking about. They go on citing each other and referring to each other as 'experts.' They have probably never themselves been teachers, and apparently, the queen nut-job, Melissa Westbrook just mentioned in a letter to the board that she would like to be considered for the superintendent. WOW!!! The Golden Acorn doesn't qualify a person to lead an urban school district. These people are out of control!

Just_Sayin, you forgot to give the url:
www.saveseattleschools.blogspot.com

Oh, hey, Just_Sayin, is David Brewster an expert? Is Anthony Robinson? What about Ted van Dyk? Is Bill Gates or Eli Broad? Have any of them been teachers - even probably?

If Melissa Westbrook is a "nut-job" then tell us what nutty thing she has said or done. She has been writing a blog about Seattle Public Schools for over five years. Surely out of the literally thousands of blog posts you can cite some examples that qualify as nutty. Name five.

Oh, and hasn't this "queen nut-job" actually been proven right on just about everything? Seattle Public Schools is going to have to spend the next two or three years un-doing the decisions by Dr. Goodloe-Johnson - decisions that have not only been shown to be wrong since she left, but were all known to be wrong when they were made.

If "these people" are out of control, then who should be controlling them?

It's me, nut-job Melissa. Just Sayin', I never said in any letter to the Board that I would like to be superintendent. Never. It would be great if you could produce the letter or cite where you read this. I did say it would be interesting to be superintendent but we all daydream of what we would do if we were in charge. I never said I had the chops to do the job. (You're right; a Golden Acorn doesn't mean I am qualified to be superintendent but again, I never said that.)

But if anyone knows Seattle Schools, beyond those who work either in the schools or in the administration, it is Charlie Mas and myself. We have been around for a long time, know the players, and most importantly, remember the history.

That many in this city do NOT like seeing the dirty laundry aired or having the disinfecting light of day cast upon our district's issues is not something I think a lot about - it has to be done.

I can think of people like the Alliance for Education, the League of Educator Voters, the Seattle Times - all have turned away from issues that needed examination. They wanted to pretend like Joe Olchefske was just an aberration, like the Moss-Adams report after that crisis was just a pile of paper, and so on. All those who had the ability to speak out and follow-up didn't do so. You have to ask yourself why superintendents and Board directors who were smart people did such poor jobs and would continue to be propped up. I have no answers to that question.

I think between the work our blog does and the fantastic work of the State Auditor's office along with growing number of watchful parents, teachers, staff and community members, our district is finally realizing that they have a duty to be honest and transparent in what they do and particularly, what they do with taxpayer money.

If that makes me a Queen Nut-Job, give me the crown and I will proudly wear it.

Melissa Westbrook

Here's the central flaw in Mr. Robinson's statement. He wrote:

"I would suggest that instead of focusing single-mindedly on 'leadership' or 'getting the right leader' as if that were the answer to any and all problems, the constitutuent elements of the Seattle Schools — board, administrative staff, teachers, union leaders, parents, students and wider community — also pay serious attention to the other side of the coin: followership."

The problem here is that the Board is supposed to lead the superintendent, not the other way around. The Board are the superintendent's bosses. Mr. Robinson - and a lot of other influential folks in this city - want a Board that is subservient to their hired executive. We had that from 1999 - 2003 and it ended in disaster. We had it again from 2007 - 2011 and it ended in another disaster. We need a Board that will exercise its duty and authority to supervise the superintendent, not one that is focused on "followership".

Another problem in his thinking is that the community is supposed to follow the superintendent. Again, wrong. The superintendent is expected to provide some leadership there, but it is supposed to be reciprocal. There should also be times when the superintendent follows the community's lead. Let's remember that the Board is the superintendent's boss and the community is the Board's boss. The community, like the Board, appears above the superintendent on the school district org chart.

I don't know anyone - at least not anyone in the school district community - who is looking for some great leader for the District. That's something that Education Reform types want. That's something that the anti-democratic Crosscut editors want. That's something that self-appointed business leaders want. The rest of us are looking for a partner, not a leader. We're looking for someone who can competently fulfill the administrative and managerial duties of the office and who will work as a PARTNER with the teachers, the schools, and the community.

The real problem is that we had an arrogant superintendent who refused to partner with anyone, who bossed the Board instead of being bossed by them, and who forced her way forward with a lot of bad ideas against the community's dire warnings. That's not leadership. Real leadership gains and inspires followers. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson never did that.

I think that Dr. Enfield would have been a good choice for superintendent. I think she approached the position with the right sense of partnership - with the Board, with the teachers, and with the community. I certainly didn't agree with everything she did, but that was never my expectation. She had my support because I believed that she was at least open to hearing an opposing view. More, that she believed it was her duty to listen to opposing views and seriously consider them.

We haven't had any more turnover in the position than other urban districts. General Stanford died. We just couldn't retain him in the position after that. Mr. Olchefske led us into a fiscal fiasco. We just couldn't retain him in the position after that. Mr. Manhas never did the job. We just couldn't retain him in the position after that. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson lost the Board's trust after a long series of lies - it wasn't just the Small Business Development Program. We just couldn't retain her in the position after that.

Which of these folks would Mr. Robinson have kept?

I don't know how to say this, yet again, so I'll try a metaphor. Doesn't matter who is driving the school bus, or how good they are at it, it'll never win the Indy 500. The engine, the body style, the size, everything is wrong for winning the Indy 500. Swap just drivers... can't win. Swap just the engine... can't win. Swap the body... can't win. We need a major reVision.

For example:

Financials: SAP is a system full of holes. It isn't transparent and it doesn't roll all the way down to the classroom. It's no surprise there's fraud and money gets lost. And even less of a surprise that it attracts con artists. We need to get some of our local brainiacs to design a holistic, transparent system. I've seen it done in the private sector, no reason it can't be done for the school district. Teachers receive budget goals from principals that receive them from the district. Teachers then create actual budgets that roll up to the school budget that roll up to the district budget. Same process for departments. There are ways to ensure that all spending is tracked through this budget system and that everyone sees who spent what on what.

Schools: Before we have principals we need to agree on the principles that drive the schools. Then we need to use those principles as the basis of every decision for the district. There's tons of research out there showing what works. Small classes; teacher collaboration; project-based learning; a multi-layered, relational, learning environment where teachers, students, staff are all expecting to learn; continuing learning opportunities for teachers and staff; accountability throughout the whole system. And what exactly do we really want the principals to do? Are they branch managers or are they HR managers? Can they do both successfully? If not, do we need to reVision their 19th century function for the 21st century? Or do they just need better tools and training?

District: Is the district too big? Why is Seattle's District so much more Administratively heavy than, say, Federal Way? And why are there only 7 VOLUNTEERS with no pay and no staff in charge of what we keep saying is the most important function of educating the children in our community? Is the District supposed to dictate or support? If both, with what balance and what accountability?

We are disappointed because the bus keeps losing the Indy 500. And we keep whining about the driver(s), the chassis, the engine. It's not enough. We need a real plan to identify realistic, effective changes that we can get excited about and implement. And we need to get over our Seattle niceness long enough to openly and passionately disagree while remaining in relationship.

As for Ms. Enfield... she's smart enough to know she would never make it through the selection process.