And then there was one.
But first there were six, which were later halved to three, then cut to two, then one—the new superintendent of the Clark County School District.
To the victor will go the toils.
The toils of managing a school district with disparate parts: five semi-autonomous regions; several campuses with students from nearly 50 countries; seven schools controlled by the for-profit Edison Schools; slow-boiling squabbles over teaching Hispanic children and hiring Hispanic administrators; long-simmering riffs over the lack of a high school in West Las Vegas; a small but empowered (by a $250,000 study) group pushing for deconsolidation; the annual struggle to recruit teachers; the annual fisticuffs with unions; a district metastasizing like a pimple on steroids—292,000 students, 300-plus schools, fifth-largest and fastest-growing district in America; the toils of dealing with the No Child Left Behind Act; and in the 2003-04 academic year, 62 percent of the state's 225 low-performing schools were in the Clark County School District.
And we haven't even mentioned the toils of dealing with the school board, of penny-pinching state lawmakers, of angry parents, of underpaid teachers (ignore those studies that show state teacher pay as middle of the pack; fact is, the $300,00 median home price is way out of reach for most educators), of lagging per-pupil expenditures, of a public that can be wildly indifferent—rumor has it that teachers were hustled into district offices on Decatur during the candidates' public interviews to make the room look full.
The Weekly queried other interested observers on their thoughts.
Keith Rheault, state superintendent of public instruction: "It [the search process] has moved quicker than I thought it would move. When I heard that Augustine Orci and Walt Rulffes were considering the job, I thought, just for consistency's sake, it was good. That's why I was leaning toward them instead of bringing in an outsider. Just the size and growth [of the district] and everything else ... an outsider could probably catch up, but it would be a six-month learning curve at the least, even for the sharpest person. For consistency's sake, I like the idea of choosing someone who's been there already."
Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association: "The process itself has taken seven months. As far as we're concerned, we could've finished this seven months ago. We favored the co-superintendents [Augustine Orci and Walt Rulffes shared duties], but the process has been fair. We favor Walt Rulffes. We've been very successful in doing innovating things with him. Some of the things that Nadelstern talks about, we're already doing in Clark County. We have it in our collective bargaining agreement that principles have more autonomy and can waive parts of the contract if they have support. We have programs where students can get dual credits in high school and college. We have schools within schools, but we call them something different. Nadelstern only works with 30,000 students. He's never worked with bond issues."
Jim Rogers, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education: "I'm happy at this point, but that doesn't make any difference if they pick Rulffes over Eric. I think that it's good that five members of the school board are going to New York to take a look. I don't know if it will do any good. [As for the lack of parental involvement] I don't know whether parents really look at the administration of a system. I think they really look at what goes on in their children's classrooms and they think that what goes on in administration doesn't affect their children when it does."
If only we could take the best of all six.
Walt Rulffes
Rulffes is the consummate insider, which is good and bad. Good because he has intimate knowledge of all the issues facing the district; bad because he could be seen as part of the reason we're in this mess. He irked legislators in 2002 when he opposed an audit of the district.
Eric Nadelstern
The brainy, 33-year New York schools veteran—official title, chief academic officer for New Schools Supervising Superintendent of the Autonomy Zone New York City Department of Education—might be the kick in the pants the district needs. "The schools I visited (Foothill High, Sawyer Middle School and Fitzgerald Elementary) ... I would be happy to teach there and be principal there. But I'm honestly not prepared to send my kids there."
He wasn't finished: "I'm not convinced that principal selection in the Clark County School District is being made on the basis of choosing the best possible administrators.
To a question about organization: "There is enormous waste in any large system."
Robert Collins
If you've seen Mad Money, the CNBC financial show where host Jim Kramer hoots and howls like Mike Ditka, you've seen Collins' type. Expressive, excitable. The rah-rah chief instructional officer for secondary education with the Los Angeles Unified School District would've certainly broken the mold of past supes—Kenny Guinn, Brian Cram and Carlos Garcia. "I want to create a sense of community, a spirit of enthusiasm. You don't do it by proclamation or bulletin. You do it by meeting with people."
Peter C. Gorman
Watching Gorman, superintendent of the Tustin Unified School District in Irvine, California, was like watching John Edwards. He was almost too smooth, too polished, and too pretty for a job that demands a roll-up-the-sleeves work ethic. His might have been the most insightful response to the deconsolidation question: "There are great things about the Clark County School District's size. You can reach out to legislators with one voice and can carry weight on certain issues and can support and create local initiatives. You can't do that when you're smaller and competing [against each other]."
Bernard Taylor, Jr.
The superintendent of schools for the Kansas City, Missouri, School District knew what was on everyone's minds: Why wasn't his contract renewed? Why, after serving as the longest stint as KC-Mo schools chief in 30 years (the district had 22 supes in three decades), after rescuing the district from state takeover in 16 months on the job, after halving the dropout rate to 10 percent, was he, in effect, being fired?
"I had a disagreement over the need for more central office staff. It was a difference of opinion. I didn't think we needed more. I didn't want to be bought out so I agreed to stay on through June 30," says Taylor, whose experience dealing with limited resources might've been a boon. "I come from a resource-deficient, resource-challenged district. [When I took over] It'd been 40 years since we passed a levy to help schools. We were $20 million to $30 million in debt and the state was going to take over."
Edward Lee Vargas
There was something calming about Vargas. Maybe it was the hair—a forest of thick, black follicles sitting almost crown-like atop his head. The superintendent of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in City of Industry, California, made a clear case that what students learn (or don't learn) in the classrooms has broader implications. "This is a quality of life issue. When you don't have good schools and a good educational system, the social fabric of a community starts to crumble. You get crime, drugs. We have to help them [citizens, companies] understand that this is a very personal issue for them."