Thursday, September 11, 2008

Please no

Next up on the Metro Nashville Public Schools "To Do" list is hiring a superintendent/director. Curiously, MNPS BOE member Karen Johnson (District 6-Antioch) highlighted as breaking news on her blog:

Monday, September 8, 2008

Breaking News Miami Herald Reports Dade School Board votes to negotiate Rudy Crew Buyout

Click here for video of meeting to dismiss school superintendent.

Rudy Crew was one of the guests that shared information on best practices for urban school districts just recently in Nashville.

I can't recall another time when Johnson posted about education issues outside of Nashville.

Just three days later comes word from Education Week that Rudy Crew has indeed been dismissed.

Four years after the Miami-Dade County, Fla., school board waged an intense campaign to woo and win a nationally renowned superintendent, Rudolph F. Crew, it has ousted him from his job on a wave of criticism about his management style and financial acumen.

In a meeting Sept. 10, the school board of the nation’s fourth-largest district decided to buy out the remaining two years of Mr. Crew’s contract for $368,000 in salary and benefits.

Surely, Johnson's not thinking that Crew would be a good replacement for Garcia? We don't need an education rock star personality to head the MNPS. We desperately need a hard worker, willing to put the children, and not their career, first. We don't need anyone with an eye already on their next book sale or their speaker's fee willing to make our children the next notch in their resume belt.

No. Please no.

3 comments:

Karen Y Johnson said...

Understand everything you say is not always included in final form in the paper. I said that we should be cautious of hiring anyone who has some of the same relational issues we had under Dr. Garcia that seems somewhat questionable and evident from Crews release from Miami. I never suggested we hire or not hire him or anyone else, in fact I said we need to pay close attention to each candidate — and each candidate’s history of building relationships and morale within a school district and/or organization which was left out. I said we do not need to rush to judgement in picking anyone. My comment merely is that the process this time has to be different which I feel this school board is taking the right steps and approach with our current search. I told the reporter I am not going off a a hunch or feel good or a I like this person to choose anyone. Rudy Crew obviously has some issues with relationships but we have to look at all the candidates and how they have accomplished success. Was it by alienating people and creating low morale or was it with a culture of respect, strong relationships and collaboration? We can't afford to bring in anyone that does not have a success record within their job performance history most especially in the area of interpersonal relations with their staff and all stakeholders.
Karen Y. Johnson

Kay Brooks said...

Readers: BOE Member Karen Johnson is referring to an article in the City Paper that was published the day after this blog post here: Will Nashville Hire Another Garcia?.

Karen: It was curious to me that Crew's status in Miami was posted to your blog when your blog rarely, if ever, includes education issue/information from other areas. With such a departure from normal it's natural to assume Crew has your interest. The next natural step, in this time of hiring our own director, is if the man has the interest of the BOE. I didn't see any noes in the City Paper article or your comments posted here.

Karen Y Johnson said...

The reason for my posting information outside of Nashville was because Dr. Crew was one of the Nashville Symposium guest Superintendents from around the country who just recently on August 22 (which was just 10 business days prior to the Miami announcement) shared best practices with Nashville Stakeholders and the BOE. Sorry I did not look at the date of your post as someone forwarded your post and the Nashville City Paper article to me today and I was unaware that you had posted on this previously.
Karen Y. Johnson