The Denver Public Schools system has a new superintendent--Michael Bennet, who comes to the job from the mayor's office, and who is new to the highly political terrain of public education. Bennet has promised to "build what can be and must be and will be the best big-city school district in the United States," and the school board has high hopes for him: The Denver Post quotes board president, Lester Woodward, as saying that "Michael is the candidate who we felt could lift us to a level that has not been achieved before;" board member Michelle Moss told the Post that Bennet "had the best chance at fixing systems and implementation and strategic planning to move the district forward."

That's heady stuff--but Bennet, who will request a pay package that pegs a substantial portion of his income to school performance, won't be able to do the miracle work he's been hired to do unless he makes smart decisions about his staff. Rocky Mountain News columnist Linda Seebach has gathered some important advice for him. Bennet's "first priority has to be choosing a chief academic officer, and if he gets that choice wrong, nothing else he does right will make any difference in the end," Seebach writes. "So I thought I might usefully solicit some advice on his behalf, and pass it along. Here are some of the highlights:

Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, says, "This field is awash in jargon, self-proclaimed experts, unwarranted claims, strong feelings and lots and lots of snake oil peddlers. Many non-educator superintendents have stumbled because they trusted the wrong folks to guide them."

Wayne Bishop, professor of mathematics at California State University at Los Angeles says that this is where nontraditional types get in trouble. Alan Bersin in San Diego is a nice example, he said, or Joel Klein, who as Mayor Michael Bloomberg's choice for chancellor of New York City Schools, hired Diana Lam.

Bersin, who left his position Thursday, wrote an article summarizing what he'd learned; educational pioneer Siegfried Engelmann explains how Bersin squandered his opportunity (read both at //educationation.org/blog/?p=98). As to Lam, Sol Stern in City Journal explains how she dumped a passably successful reading curriculum in favor of whole language (go to www.city-journal.org and search for lam stern).

Sandra Stotsky, former senior associate commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education, suggested that the basic qualification should be at least a master's degree in science or mathematics (and not in education). "The two critical subjects in K-12 now being dumbed down beyond belief are math and science, and the only kind of person who can understand what their content should be is someone well-versed in that content."

And as to math, Bastiaan Braams of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Emory University looked into Denver's math curriculum and found the district is using Everyday Mathematics in grade school, Connected Mathematics in middle school, and Cognitive Tutor and Interactive Mathematics Program in high school. "I regard IMP as the most degenerate of all mathematics programs; Connected Mathematics as awful, and Everyday Mathematics as bad. Do you know if these are still system-wide mandates?"

Why yes, apparently they are. Has math performance in Denver improved since they were adopted? Not so's you'd notice. These curriculums are all creatures of the so-called standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics; anyone who supports them, says Barry Garelick, deserves "a drop kick through the door."

Erich Martel of Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C., suggests asking candidates to describe "some of the fads and popular beliefs" associated with teaching reading and mathematics. Excellent advice. In the education wars, one person's fads are another's "best practices." You want to call things by their right names.

He will request a contract that pegs his pay to performance? Why are big city supes doing this? Gene White in Indianapolis is doing the same...so, if you are a teacher in XYZ elementary school, you are going to work harder to teach your ESL itinerant students math so the supe can make more money?

Requiring a degree in science is nonsense. I have one, and I can't do Bennet's job. The best advice I have is that he sticks to what works.

I thought the best line in there was: 'In the education wars, one person's fads are another's "best practices."' That works both ways. Persons who are so convinced of their position's virtues and the opposition's shortcomings aren't likely to see the virtues in the other side or their own shortcomings.

I would suggest that it would be wise for him *not* to choose a "chief academic officer" but rather to get much more involved in the details of what is actually being taught and how. Appointing a CAO would tend to remove him from that critically-important stuff and focus him more on things like budgets and facilities.

thanks for posting this link.
i'll be linking to it myself
as soon as i get done here.

"If he says things like 'We must free children from the tyranny of computation so all children can master algebra and higher order thinking skills,' drive a wooden stake through his heart."