To read more entries on this blog, click here: The SunBreak
“Can Susan Enfield deliver as interim superintendent?” is the question posed by the Seattle Times Twitter account this morning, following the school board’s (right) unanimous decision to dismiss previous Seattle Public Schools superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson last night.
Don Kennedy, the chief financial and operations officer, was also let go, in the wake of a scandal over the alleged misuse of district funds.
Let’s rephrase that question: “Will Sisyphus get that damn rock to stay put?”
West Seattle Blog has video of the cheering of the decision to dismiss Goodloe-Johnson, but it is hard to shake the impression that this exact process–played out in public to the cheap seats–illustrates what’s organizationally dysfunctional about Seattle Public Schools.
Let’s turn to Twitter once again, and at-large SunBreak contributor Dylan Wilbanks, for a succinctsummary of why: “The last 4 Seattle Schools superintendents: Died, resigned amid scandal, resigned amid controversy, resigned amid scandal. I see a problem.” Dylan also gives this diagnosis: “The whole system is sick. Mealymouth board, no oversight in administration, parents alternatively demanding and passive.”
From the evidence, Seattle Public Schools is locked into a cycle that oscillates between “waiting for Superman” (not an endorsement of the documentary), and subsequent scapegoating. In this case, it’s hard to argue the scapegoating. Goodloe-Johnson has been out of town, looking after her mother, who is ill, since the Seattle Times broke the scandal story, and has been tried both in absentia and in the media.
The school board aided and abetted the circus, apparently mistaking a reactive, ill-considered response to the seriousness of the charges and their implications for the deliberate action deserved. It is still, for instance, not clear what the board knew and when they knew it.
Board member Peter Maier now says he did get a copy of the investigatory Sutor report that the board has previously said it knew nothing about. In fact, the board has based the dismissals less on the financial misdealing than a “breach of trust”–which breach now appears to be that Goodloe-Johnson didn’t successfully sweep the problem under the rug, as promised.
At last night’s public beheading, reports the West Seattle Blog, one speaker likened the events to “a media quasi-lynching […] I don’t know if the superintendent has done what she is accused of, but you don’t know either,” and people hissed at him.
Hissing is a good response in the context of a Gold Rush ghost town’s melodrama for the tourists, but outside of that it’s an indicator that nothing all that rational is preoccupying people. As evidence of that, consider that the scandal in toto involves some $1.8 million. Because it’s said to be difficult to fire the superintendent and CFO for cause, the two will receive severances of $264,000 and $87,500, respectively. That is, the board has just agreed to tack on 20 percent to the $1.8 million to “protect taxpayers.”
This is both relevant and ironic because the school district’s advisers also told management that it would be difficult to fire Silas Potter, the alleged “con man” at the center of scandal, for cause, when an investigation revealed serious problems with the way Potter was awarding contracts. Does this sound like a problem solved, to you?
Stepping back, consider that the head of a $560-million organization was just dismissed by seven people who, as Danny Westneat points out, “work for per diem only—a max of $4,800 a year. The seven-member board has just two helpers, who mostly do scheduling and office support.” Is that the basic structure you would like to see deciding the leadership of the company you work for?
None of this is an argument for or against Maria Goodloe-Johnson retaining her position. It’s just that it should be clear that if a school district seems to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off, the solution is not to sew a new head back on and call it good. Compare and contrast, for instance, the Seattle Times story on our new interim superintendent, Susan Enfield, with the Seattle Times welcoming Goodloe-Johnson. Can you stand more irony?
“Her courage to honestly speak the truth about issues that have lingered since the Civil War gives us great hope for the lessons we can learn from her experience,” Board President Cheryl Chow said.
“I’m convinced that she has a really deep understanding of the issues that we face,” said School Board Vice President Michael DeBell, who praised her flexibility and creativity.
If you remove the board president’s names, it becomes difficult to tell one candidate from another. All you can see in these statements is the board’s desire to move, again, reactively, “forward” in any direction that leads away from the last debacle. People who are trapped in cycles of dysfunctional behavior are fond of clean breaks with the past, and moving forward. Having to sit down and work through the latest mess disheartens them.
So long as anyone thinks this latest problem about “leadership,” I think we can rule out anyone having learned a lesson. What is wrong here is not simply “culture,” but organizational structure. And no per-diem group of seven is likely to exert much of an influence on that.
