Shaking Up Schools: A Job for an Outsider?

School Administrator, Dec, 1995 by Michael Casserly

One hears a great deal now about bringing non-educators into public schools, particularly those in cities, to shake up inertia-saddled educational bureaucracies and foster reform.

Many critics believe that schools are incapable of improving themselves. Only someone from the outside, presumably without vested interests, could break the stranglehold that school boards and administrators have on our schools. Is there truth to this notion?

The fact is no one really knows for there are few examples to cite. The confidence of those who assert that only non-educators can straighten out the schools is mostly hubris without evidence.

Still some places have tried it. Milwaukee's superintendent from 1991 through the first half of 1995 came from the city's social service department with little direct educational experience. Minneapolis' superintendent earlier directed a small private consulting firm specializing in work with government agencies, including schools, and Philadelphia's superintendent is a lawyer with an educational background in divinity who once was Maryland's chief state school officer. New York City's school chancellor from 1984 to 1987 came from higher education.

All became excellent school leaders in part because of their natural abilities, their experience with large public sector institutions, and their leadership skills, but most importantly their vision of how schools could improve the lives of young people. Still, each has had difficulties similar to superintendents hired from traditional pools.

Advocates for school leaders from non-school ranks often cite two recently named superintendents as examples of breaking the mold: Seattle's new superintendent is a retired Army major general and Chicago's new superintendent was the city's finance director. Both, however, have sustained experience in running large public institutions accountable to a diverse citizenry. Yet both have been on the job for too short a period to know whether their tenures will be successful or if their performances teach us any overarching lessons.

Likewise, superintendents are and have been hired through traditional routes--both from within their own systems and from outside--who forged strong reputations as reformers and no-nonsense administrators. Examples include the current superintendents in Baltimore, Memphis, and Portland, and the former and current superintendents of San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Dade County, among others.

No existing evidence points to the ability of an outsider to create better schools than an insider. When you hear someone declare he opposite, listen carefully because the arguments usually orbit around better management, tighter finances, greater personnel utilization, and the like. All these factors are critical, and school leaders can learn a great deal from other sectors about them, but these issues do not define the core of the nation's educational problems. Saving a little money in the central office does not boost achievement.

The public, for its part, does not assess its tax-supported schools on how well they manage themselves, although parents do respond to notions of customer service and safety. Instead, the public holds schools to a bottom line: how well children learn.

None of this is to say that non-educators cannot do an excellent job running public schools--or that some educators, for that matter, couldn't do an excellent job running a Fortune 500 corporation. Just as shareholders should ask a prospective CEO about his or her plan for increasing profits, parents and others should ask a prospective superintendent about his or her strategy for raising student achievement to new, higher educational standards. If the answer--from either an insider or an outsider--is only about finances or shaking up the system but not increasing achievement, then move on to the next candidate.