The Private Sector Beckons

School Administrator, Feb, 1998 by Krista Ramsey

Former superintendents describe their shift from public education to corporate management and sales

Most people would have said it was enough.

Ernest Fleishman had invested his entire career in education. He had spent two decades as a superintendent. He was still productive and popular. His colleagues were ready to send him off into a hard-earned and well-deserved retirement. But Fleishman wasn't finished yet.

In 1989, as superintendent of Greenwich, Conn., schools, he was just completing a four-year term on the advisory board for Scholastic Inc. when the giant educational publishing company's CEO approached him with a job offer. Fleishman listened carefully, then accepted.

"In 20 years I had learned a lot. I decided it was time for me to reach out, to contribute in a different way," he says. "For me, it was the crossing of those two things--20 years of feeling at the top of my game and the feeling of wanting to give something more."

For the last 7 1/2 years, Fleishman has served as Scholastic's senior vice president for education and corporate relations, making him one of the earliest of a new wave of public school district administrators departing their jobs for private-sector positions.

Some, like Fleishman, leave at a point when they could just retire. But others are choosing to leave in mid-career, sometimes moving their families and risking their financial stability to seek fresh challenges, wider influence or bigger paychecks in private industry.

Observers say the phenomenon--still affecting a relatively small number of superintendents, but among them some high-profile names--is a commentary on both the marketable skills superintendents bring to their jobs and the ever-growing challenges that affect the lives of superintendents.

"When I left, a lot of people said to me, "You must be delighted to be changing jobs. That bothered me. I said, 'Oh no, I've spent 20 years in a wonderful job and have been successful,"' Fleishman says. "But the superintendency is a rough place. People get chewed up and stomped on. I've seen it. I see people departing because it's rough and tumble and they think, 'Who needs it?'"

Knocking On Doors

Whether from frustration or ambition or the need to pay their own children's tuition bills, administrators are more inclined today to say "yes" when private companies come calling. Indeed, in many cases, superintendents initiate the contact themselves, often testing the employment waters with companies with whom their schools have done business over the years.

"Most of the superintendents we've talked to know a good bit about us. They've done their homework," says Chris Whittle, founder of the Edison Project, a school-management company that has hired three district superintendents and six assistant superintendents. "About half the time, they knock on our door. The other half, we knock on theirs."

Most industry observers don't predict a widescale exodus of top-quality performers because the private sector's need for educators is not that great. But some say, with the boom in education-related businesses, the number of those leaving public education to join the corporate ranks of private industry could grow in the years ahead.

"Before 1992, it was not an occurrence. Now everyone in the educational leadership industry has former superintendents in executive offices," says John McLaughlin, editor of The Education Industry Report, which tracks privatization efforts. "It's nor just education management groups, but those dealing in contracted services."

What Roles They Play

What private companies want from former superintendents and how they use them differ from company to company. In some, they serve on the front lines as a well-credentialed, well-connected sales force. In others, they are a behind-the-scenes think tank, alerting their employers to hot trends in education, supplying academic research and sometimes breathing a healthy dose of reality into product lines and programs.

Many companies expect a mixture of the two roles--part seller, part scholar. But the most important thing former superintendents bring is credibility.

"We wanted to be a company of educators helping other educators, instead of another private company coming in offering solutions," says Randy Best, founder and chairman of Dallas-based Voyager Expanded Learning, which provides extended-day, summer and in-school enrichment programs for elementary schools.

Best has hired a dozen school superintendents, among them a former California superintendent of the year (see related story, page 45). And, for three months last fall, the company had both the incoming and outgoing presidents of AASA on its corporate roster. Both Voyager's chief executive officer and president are former local school superintendents. The other ex-superintendents serve the company as regional presidents.

At Voyager, the former superintendents meet once every two months to brainstorm new ideas and improvements for current programs and to update the company on educational research. But clearly their major function is sales.