Superintendent search process

We haven't posted anything here about the release of the names of the finalists for the superintendent's position. The big conversation, even making the Jordan Levy show yesterday (so we hear), is the name that wasn't on the list: Deputy Superintendent Stephen Mills.

I've never heard anyone say anything bad about the deputy superintendent (which is saying something!), and I don't think the decision really had much to do with him at all. I think it had everything to do with timing:

It has been 45 years since the city hired someone from outside to lead its school system, but the School Committee appears poised to do that if it follows the search committee’s recommendation.
(from the above article by Jacqueline Reis)

45 years? Almost half a century? Do you know how many children have gone through the Worcester Public Schools under what has been, in essence, one long continuation of the same administration?

I'm as much of a Worcester booster as anyone, but I find it impossible to believe that we lead the world in educational leadership to such an extent that we need not look outside our own system for leadership in half a century. It is past time that we looked around a bit more.

Jordan Levy said something along the lines of "the fix is in." That phrasing makes it more personal than it is. It's less about personal vendettas and more about new blood. Insisting on a Worcester candidate and disregarding the time and thought the search committee put into this would be a mistake.

Let's throw open some windows up on Crown Hill and get some air circulating in the Driscoll Building. It'd be good for us.