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I think an Army General is a good choice for about any leadership role. Maybe he can tighten things up in a way that a stereotypical person for this role could not.
My own observations lead me to believe that military experience is of very little value in civilian situations. There is a significant difference between coercion (military) and leadership (civilian). Students, teachers, and staff are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Sergeant Major, the Military Police, the Court Martial, and the Brig. Our good general may find that he can't simply bark orders and expect people to pay any attention to him outside the military.
Now I'm going to be sarcastic: if the general doesn't work out, maybe our school board could get us a really tough prison warden next iteration. One from the for-profit segment of the prison industry might be really good.
First of all, after reading these post, I weep for the school system.
The last thing in the world you want in a superintendent is an education background. Have lived with superintendents who were teachers, then administrators, then in the central office and then superintendents.
They have all be nice people but lack vision, perspective, broad thinking skills. They are part of the system, and the system is broke. They would be risk averse people and in all likelihood have a very narrow viewpoint, based on their limited life's experience.
You want someone who is intelligence, a problem solver, can motivate people and most of all, make a decision.
Most high ranking military officers can do this, they have had to and they have had to put a lot of time in the joint (Army-Navy-AF-USMC-Civilian DoD) arena. Don't know the General in question, but I would take him or her, whichever, over the run of the mill civilian educrat, any day. Sounds like just what Wake County needs.
This is an article from the N&O that was also published via a national education periodical website...
Education Week: Wake Schools Chief Allowed to Do TV, Web Stints (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/12/27/15mct_ncsuperintendent.h30.html?tkn=LTUFOBVAS1afij 19cfKf5v8fbYl6iH74kwhi&cmp=clp-edweek - broken link)
Is that a rhetorical question? Not sure what your point is.
My point is that by having a national audience, decisions made by the board and the new superintendent can become more about the national point-of-view and how they personally appear on the national level, and a lot less about the local point-of-view (parents, teachers, principals, and local business leaders). I personally think that with the number of hours that parents entrust the school district with their child and their child's future, they would want decisions based on local issues. At the end of the day, it is one parent sending off one child to be with one teacher. The teacher has more waking hours with their child than they do. These local voices are the loudest voices that should be heard concerning changes to the system. I'm worried that they are going to get drowned out...
Is that a rhetorical question? Not sure what your point is.
The point I got from these articles is that our national public education system is a pawn in the hands of multi-billionaires like Eli Broad and Bill Gates. While some like Rhee and Guggenheim like to blame teachers and teachers unions and throw around ideas like incentive pay based on student test scores from flawed testes like the EOGs and EOCs. But very few people are paying attention to the 10,000 LB elephant in the room.... namely the wholesale take over and dismantling of our public education system in this country as a whole by the billionaire boys club.
Along with the articles Ann posted I highly recommend Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System.
First of all, after reading these post, I weep for the school system.
The last thing in the world you want in a superintendent is an education background. Have lived with superintendents who were teachers, then administrators, then in the central office and then superintendents.
They have all be nice people but lack vision, perspective, broad thinking skills. They are part of the system, and the system is broke. They would be risk averse people and in all likelihood have a very narrow viewpoint, based on their limited life's experience.
You want someone who is intelligence, a problem solver, can motivate people and most of all, make a decision.
Most high ranking military officers can do this, they have had to and they have had to put a lot of time in the joint (Army-Navy-AF-USMC-Civilian DoD) arena. Don't know the General in question, but I would take him or her, whichever, over the run of the mill civilian educrat, any day. Sounds like just what Wake County needs.
Do you apply this same logic to the selection of military leadership? To choose someone from the outside rather than someone with narrow, military-only experience? Wouldn't it only stand to reason to do so?
From (Background - The Broad Superintendents Academy (http://www.broadacademy.org/about/overview.html - broken link))
"The Broad Superintendents Academy was started in 2002 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad to transform urban school districts into effective public enterprises. The Academy is a program of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems.
The Academy identifies and prepares prominent leaders—executives who have experience successfully leading large organizations and a passion for public service—then places them in urban school districts to dramatically improve the quality of education for America’s students.
The Academy is run like an executive training program. Participants attend extended weekend sessions over the course of 10 months, while continuing to work in their current jobs."
According to Forbes Magazine, in 2009, Eli Broad was the 93rd richest man in the WORLD with a net worth of $5.2 billion. (#93 Eli Broad - The World's Billionaires 2009 - Forbes.com) This was a lower ranking than in previous years...
This is a man with a lot of power.
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Looking deeper...
