Chief Academic Officers - hiring of professional educators as deputy school superintendents

School Administrator, June, 2001 by Jay Mathews

Bersin soon made headlines by luring Alvarado, one of the nation's best-known advocates for change in schools, from the New York City school system, where he had once been chancellor and had, for the last 12 years, been head of Community School District 2. Alvarado put a new emphasis on literacy and mathematics education, set up special focus programs in low-performing schools and saw quick results. Sixtyeight percent of the 142 San Diego schools measured by the state last year showed strong academic improvement, making them eligible for cash performance awards.

Alvarado's example appears to have persuaded other school boards to follow the same path, find a non-educator to deal with the school board, handle public relations and set an overall tone, while putting a very aggressive and imaginative CAO in charge of the business of making the schools improve.

The CAO title already is used frequently in universities, giving it an additional cache. Harvard's Susan Moore Johnson says calling someone a chief academic officer does seem to elevate its holder "above the traditional deputy or associate superintendent for instruction. ... It seems to have moved somewhat closer to the top of the pyramid."

In many districts, she says, the associate superintendent for instruction is at the same level as the director of human resources or associate superintendent for personnel. But, Johnson says, "it seems that the new CAOs are now superior in authority, influence and pay to all positions but the superintendent.

In Baltimore, Morgan's CAO duties put her in charge of all teaching and learning activities in the city's 180 schools. Area superintendents report to her directly. She oversees professional development, whole school reform and the school improvement office. She has coordinating responsibility for special education and the office of research and accountability.

"I believe that while I'm the No. 2, my position is the key to the school system's academic success and, if you've noticed the dramatic improvement Baltimore has been experiencing over the last two years, the CAO position, I believe, has been crucial to that success."

Most education experts agree that the new position is a natural outgrowth of the rise of the nontraditional superintendent.

"The proponents of the model have realized that many nontraditionalists do not have the leadership skills for the position," says Art Johnson, the former CAO at Palm Beach County, Fla., where he now is superintendent.

Johnson's background is typical for chief academic officers--a Ph.D. in education administration and 35 years of experience in all phases of teaching and administration, including school principal.

When Seattle's superintendent, Joseph Olchefske, announced the appointment of a new CAO in 1999, he extolled his selection, June Collins Rimmer, for being "an educator's educator." Olchefske had come from a career in public finance and had no education degree. Faced with running a 47,000-student district, he made it clear how much he needed the support of someone like Rimmer with a 29-year career as a teacher, principal and assistant superintendent in the 42,000-student Indianapolis school district.