Live from Miami, D.C.'s New Schools Chief?
Rudy Crew, the schools superintendent in South Florida's Miami-Dade County, isn't being terribly discreet about D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's interest in putting him into the top job in the Washington school system.
Never mind that the job is already taken, by Superintendent Clifford Janey. Never mind that Fenty says no decision has been made about what happens to Janey once the mayor completes his takeover of authority for the public schools.
Crew, who is caught up in a power struggle of his own in Miami, is using Fenty's offer, or at least Fenty's courting, as a weapon in his own backyard. A leading radio and TV commentator in Miami, Jim Defede, had Crew on his radio show and the superintendent--an adviser to Fenty during the new mayor's campaign last fall--said that Washington is wooing him.
"There are other school districts," Crew said. "Certainly the Washington D.C. scenario is very real."
I love it when school superintendents and other political figures tell their local reporters about job offers that are being held as a state secret back in whatever city is doing the offering. It's as if these folks haven't yet been told that the Internet is available not only in your own town, but even--gasp!--in other states.
Anyway, everybody around here is sticking to their stories. Janey met with Fenty and school board president Robert Bobb last week and everyone pretended that the same cast of characters will be around in a few weeks. And maybe it will. Crew told the Miami radio station that "I would say my odds are a good 70 percent, 75 percent" that he will stay in Florida and honor his contract, which runs through 2010. But Crew needs to shore up his support on his own school board, and he said his continued presence in Miami is contingent on that.
Crew makes $315,000 a year in Miami. Astonishingly, reports in Miami say that a number somewhere between $600,000 and $900,000 is being dangled before Crew by his Washington courters. That would almost certainly have to be one of these deals in which private money is collected to supplement tax dollars to produce a mega-salary for a guy who flits from one city to another, a very smart vagabond who is yet the latest example of the unending search for the magic wand that will transform the city's schools.
By Marc Fisher |
May 2, 2007; 7:37 AM ET
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Posted by: dirrtysw | May 2, 2007 10:15 AM
Interesting that none of the current school system management level employees have been considered qualified to take the position.
Makes me wonder if any of the school system management personnel are qualified to continue in the positions they have now.
Posted by: SoMD | May 2, 2007 11:00 AM
Man, I have to complete my thoughts before I post so I don't keep adding new ones.
The 300K difference btwn the 600K and 900K quoted amount being offered is around 300 new desktop computers. That means 10 schools WON'T be getting their 30 new computers this year. That's a huge step backwards.
And getting this guy is supposed to help the kids?
Sorry again for the double posts.
Posted by: SoMD | May 2, 2007 11:05 AM
If we are going to pay these school Sups like CEOs they better start acting like one. That means cutting costs, firing the dead weights and improving performance across the board. Too bad the NEA, as always, will be the roadblock to any progress. It is time we started running our schools with the kids and parents in mind. The whole culture of public education needs to change.
Posted by: FCPS watchdog | May 2, 2007 12:00 PM
The Mayor maybe on the right track, but I feel he might not be attacking the problem with all the vim and vigor it is going to require. The DC School system and for that matter the DC Govt. is resplendent with self serving bureaucrats and maybe a little larceny thrown in as well. The Mayor ought to look at cleaning house from the top to the bottom by requesting resignations from the top to the bottom and starting over from scratch. Big job, deserves big actions.
Posted by: Ed | May 2, 2007 1:13 PM
So, why does paying this guy $900k to run the schools with the same education plan, same budget, and same staff as Janey did make sense? The Fenty plan changes hardly anything but creates churn at the top and gives our favorite shoe salesman lots of chips to play with the big money cronies. Crews would just be another pawn in that pocket-lining game.
Posted by: petra | May 2, 2007 1:20 PM
Someone please Get Mayor's Fenty's EAR!!!
Hit the ground running.
Make visible changes, i.e. Clean School grounds - Mayor control grounds maintenance, Repair Building - Mayor controls building mgmt, Hire "Caring Qualified" school personnel and Get rid of Janey - Mayor controls personnel,
Mayor Fenty, You Got the Power, Please,
Please use it!!! You asked for it, now what you gonna do???
Posted by: Auntkookie | May 2, 2007 2:48 PM
Fire the deadweights? That would be two-third of the people on the payroll!
Posted by: Simple Math | May 2, 2007 7:09 PM
OMG, that is an insane amount of money. Too much. We all know nothing is going to change anyway. Does any major city in the US have really good public schools? I can't think of any.
Posted by: Kay | May 3, 2007 10:26 AM
Just because those salary figures are being "reported" in Miami doesn't mean they're accurate. The posting is all about how Crew is using the possibility of an offer from DC for leverage in Miami.
Posted by: GJ | May 3, 2007 2:10 PM
Once again DCPS and DC government engage in another round of serial superintendents. Having worked in public affairs at DCPS's North Capitol headquarters several years ago, I was able to see up close the inefficiencies of hiring a new and different superintendent based on the change of internal and external political winds. Superintendents Arlene Ackerman and Paul Vance were just the latest in a series of executive educators recruited to ride the neurotic dysfunctional ponies known as DCPS bureaucracy and DC government. What I also saw were some perfectly professional and exceptionally competent executive educators overlooked or passed over in favor of the newest outside superintendent sensation.
Other than the fact that Rudy Crew was New York City's school superintendent in the 1990s, and DC's drooling to use the Big Apple's educational model in 2007, I don't get it. Besides if Dr. Crew was all that he's been hyped to be, why did billionaire New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg feel compelled to be czar of schools after Rudy Crew's efforts to fix them? Is this what Fenty & Friends want District citizens to shell-out over a quarter-million of our tax dollars in new superintendent compensation. Remember, that doesn't include the buyout money for current superintendent Dr. Clifford Janey.
One highly undervalued jewel that comes to my mind and experience is Dr. Wilma Bonner. Not only did I observe her high level of educational competence at DCPS, but also it was clearly enhanced by bona fide effective administrative skills. Unfortunately, Dr. Bonner is a passenger in the back seat of a runaway car whose driver reads the map while steering. If we expect the District's unique educational mess to be fixed, then nearsighted D.C. bureaucrats and autocrats need to understand the value, asset and advantages of recruiting experience and competence from within DCPS.
Outsourcing systemic solutions to a truly internal problem will have us revisiting and repairing the same mess (or new mess) as before, regardless of who takes over or is perceived as the latest savior superintendent.
Dennis Moore, Chairperson
District of Columbia Independents for Citizen Control (DCICC)
http://www.DCIndependents.org and dennis@DCIndependents.org
Posted by: Dennis Moore | May 3, 2007 5:48 PM
Rudy Crew is worth every penny - if anyone could change DC, it's him. If you want the best, you have to pay for it.
Posted by: Anon | May 7, 2007 7:49 PM
please take him!!!
Posted by: miami educator | May 9, 2007 8:27 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
Damn. Should have gone into public education administration to make a living.
On a serious note, why hasn't Fenty looked at David Hornbeck, the former schools chief in Philadelphia? He was making some gains in that system under Rendell.
Or is Fenty's fixation on Crew related to some conversations the mayor had with Bloomberg in New York?