Few jobs are as demanding as that of a big city school superintendent, and we weren’t wild about Jerry Wartgow’s surprise decision to retire early. Fortunately for Denver Public Schools, three stellar candidates have emerged to succeed him.
We’re confident that Denver students will be in very good hands. But whose?
School board members have a teeth-gnashing decision to make over the next few days, choosing from a strong field with differing bodies of experience.
The candidates have been paraded through the city this week, meeting with various school constituencies. Two candidates in particular, Michael Bennet and Patricia Harvey, practically radiate the energy and vision necessary to take on the many challenges that face DPS – from its high dropout rates to its gaping achievement gap to the fact far too many kids show up at school unprepared for the day of learning. Christine Johnson has many accomplishments to recommend her, too.
The board must assess whose skills are the best match for Denver.
If they think problems can be solved from within DPS itself, Harvey is a proven school leader who provides an inspiring portrait of her tenure in St. Paul, Minn. She exudes the best practices of educational reform and believes they will apply in Denver.
If the board believes that DPS would benefit most by engaging all the institutions of the city – political, business and community organizations – then Bennet stands particularily tall. He’s a non-traditional candidate in the mode of his mentor, John Hickenlooper, with a can-do attitude that will draw on deeply rooted connections and political savvy. Bennet, chief of staff for the mayor, believes that urban schools are most successful when the community is involved, providing scholarship money, job opportunities, mentoring and grants.
He’s a reformer who would give principals more power to run their schools, while asking them to be more of a resource for teachers, spending time in classrooms and less time worrying about the cafeteria. “Principals are the leadership [of the schools] and need to be the leadership,” he says, not DPS central office managers.
Bennet is a problem-solver, as evidenced by his successes in the mayor’s office, and vows to attrack a top educational team to tackle DPS’s problems. He would approach the job as most of us approach the New York Times crossword puzzle – an almost impenetrable task but one that can be solved, one word at a time.
Harvey is the seasoned superintendent whose respect for teachers and children stems from her successes in previous positions. Like Bennet, Harvey isn’t going to reinvent the wheel in Denver; she’s satisfied that important reforms, such as accountability and competition, have taken root, with compensation improvements coming that stem from the upcoming ballot initiative.
“The ingredients are all there to lift off,” says Bennett.
“The agenda is right; let’s make it work,” says Harvey.
In St. Paul, test scores have soared in recent years under Harvey’s leadership. She says the key has been convincing students that effort matters. “Academic rigor is the leveling of the playing field,” she says.
She says schools can and should serve as a hub in the community – a rallying point for social services. A school in her district that needed a new gym partnered with the local YMCA and built a facility that the community could share with students.
It will be up to the DPS board to determine if her ideas can transfer to Denver, or if the task requires a political powerhouse like Bennet.
Christine Johnson is a former DPS teacher and principal who now serves as president of the Community College of Denver. If the board turns to her, she will summon a strong feel for the DPS community. Johnson is more familiar with the inner workings of DPS than Bennet and Harvey and has already built some bridges between college and at-risk students.
She has distinguished herself as the first Latina college president in Colorado, and her appointment could rally academic ambition among DPS students.
Whoever gets the nod, the next superintendent will be a leader who is not only dedicated to erasing Denver school’s achievement gap, but also someone who knows they’ve been handed an amazing opportunity to change the future for 74,000 children.
