Urban journal
The Rochester
school district starts the year with way more challenges than are good for it.
The biggest, of course, is finding a new superintendent; Manny
Rivera will be on the job for only five more months. I don’t question his
devotion to the district and to Rochester’s
children, but there are limits to what he can accomplish before he goes to Boston.
And even if we luck out and a new superintendent moves in
the day after Rivera leaves, it’ll take months for the new person to learn the
ropes.
The district also hopes to embark on a major capital
program, upgrading most schools, perhaps demolishing a few and expanding others.
The plan carries plenty of potential for controversy.
Then there’s the issue of diversity. Some African-American
leaders complain that the district doesn’t hire enough black teachers. And for
the past several months, Rivera has been dealing with charges that some
employees were denied promotions because of racism.
Rivera and his staff will be dealing with all that while
they draft a new budget and hire and train new teachers and administrators. And
meantime, the School Board will be looking for Rivera’s replacement.
The board’s search committee is asking for public input,
starting with questionnaires on the qualities needed in a new superintendent. We
are to rate a long list of possible characteristics: 22 of them, to be exact.
(And one of the 22 on the list has 11 sub-characteristics.)
Should the new superintendent be familiar with “the crucial
issues facing a large urban school district”? Should the superintendent have a record
of “changing a large, complex organization”? Of working with unions, involving “civic,
corporate, and foundation partners,” standing up to “powerful individuals and
interest groups.”
Well, yes. All of the above. What I want is somebody who
knows the challenges of urban districts like Rochester’s.
Somebody who knows what’s happening in the inner cities of America.
Somebody who doesn’t insist that despite the concentration
of poverty, this school district, on its own, can do the impossible: raise up Rochester’s
poorest children and send them out into the world able to be successful.
Somebody who will capture the imagination of the Greater
Rochester public. Somebody who will fire up public officials and business leaders.
Somebody who can overcome the growing racial tension within
this community.
And somebody who has extraordinary vision — who is
thinking way, way ahead of the curve. Maybe somebody who could devise a
magnet-school plan that would excite not only city parents and students but
also suburban parents. Somebody who could convince suburban districts and area colleges
and universities to establish innovative campus schools that would serve city
and suburban children.
Is there such a person? We’ll see.
If this community had the will, it could create a model
school district, one that would show the nation how to overcome the crippling
effects of concentrated poverty and set its poorest children on a path to
success.
But that can’t be done unless the entire community gets
involved. So far, we haven’t had the will. Urging suburbanites to serve as
mentors and tutors is about as big as we think.
Could a new superintendent push us into bolder action? Maybe
not. But it doesn’t hurt to hope.
Missing from the ‘fraud’ story
One of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s last acts as state attorney
general was to file suit against the Rochester
school district’s former CEO for Business, Henry Marini. Spitzer charges that
Marini helped a group of consultants defraud the district.
The consultants got contracts for about $420,000. The suit
charges that the consultants and Marini evaded School Board review by subdividing
the contracts so that each one would fall under the $25,000 limit that requires
that review. And, says Spitzer’s suit, some of the work was never done.
`Based on that release — and the Democrat and Chronicle’s Saturday
report — you’d think that Marini and the four consultants have been found
guilty. But this is a suit, not a judgment. And it’s a civil suit; nobody has
charged that a crime has been committed. Rational folks will wait for the
outcome of the case.
I’ll say here that I’ve been an admirer of Marini. When he joined
the district, its credibility was about as low as it could get. He came from
the private sector — Bausch and Lomb — and was highly respected. In my own
dealings, I found him to be bright, intensely knowledgeable about the
district’s finances, and passionate about the district and the children it
served.
Marini’s attorney, Lawrence Andolina, said on Tuesday that
it was hard to respond to Spitzer’s charges; neither he nor Marini had been
served a copy of the complaint. But, insisted Andolina, Marini has done nothing
wrong. He cooperated fully with the Spitzer investigation, said Andolina, “and
he is prepared to defend himself in the matter.”
Marini had “no prior relationship” with the consultants,
said Andolina, and all of the consultants’ services “were performed and
performed well.”
And, said Andolina, all of the contracts were approved by
other school-district administrators.
I’m not going to sit here and judge this case. But there are
two sides in this story. Marini’s deserves public airing.
This article appears in Jan 3-9, 2007.
