New Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent. (Penn: live, costs, bus)

[Enough_Already]

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

It is difficult to be more incompetent than that. Zero due diligence in this matter means that ALL board members should be removed.

Originally Posted by Merge

Why is that exactly? Because you know something (anything) about standards and best practices for hiring a new superintendent for a large urban school district?

Again. The most imminent and relevant question is "who was responsible for selecting and hiring the outside consultant?" Once you have that information, you can move to the next step in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, rather then acting impetuously.

I think MountainDewGuy is correct. There was no RFP and no other organization was considered for a job that could cost $100,000. That is incompetence or worse.

[Enough_Already]

Originally Posted by Merge

Why is that exactly? Because you know something (anything) about standards and best practices for hiring a new superintendent for a large urban school district?

Again. The most imminent and relevant question is "who was responsible for selecting and hiring the outside consultant?" Once you have that information, you can move to the next step in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, rather then acting impetuously.

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

Frankly, I don't need to know one single thing about hiring a superintendent to know that this process was BS. It reeks of cronyism. Paying a firm $100,000 for their first search ever?

And one person may be responsible, but no one single person on the board voted no. They should ALL GO and be replaced with individuals who have experience beyond just teaching and attending Pittsburgh schools.

Exactly!

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Merge

Again. The most imminent and relevant question is "who was responsible for selecting and hiring the outside consultant?" Once you have that information, you can move to the next step in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, rather then acting impetuously.

The article I linked to says...

Ms. Holley said she and Mr. Sumpter met Mr. Perkins at a conference for the Council of Urban Boards of Education and recommended his consulting firm to the board when then-superintendent Linda Lane announced plans to retire from the district in September. Ms. Holley and Mr. Perkins said they were “impressed with his credentials.”

Therefore it seems to be on Regina Holley (Board President, District 2) and Thomas Sumpter (District 3).

FWIW, Brian Perkins has a much more impressive-sounding resume than his "hire" does, so I can see why Board members may have thought he was qualified for the job. They still should have contacted other people however.

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

And one person may be responsible, but no one single person on the board voted no. They should ALL GO and be replaced with individuals who have experience beyond just teaching and attending Pittsburgh schools. Does Pitt and CMU have mostly trustees who were former professors? But, that isn't going to happen, unfortunately. Our school system is doomed with many of these dolts running the show.

One current board member voted against hiring Brian Perkins: Cynthia Falls. Another three weren't on the board a the time of the vote. Thus if you consider hiring Mr. Perkins to be the primary mistake, they aren't all equally to blame.

[gladhands]

I suspect that Mr. Perkins credentials are the reason that so many councilmembers abstain from voting. They were hesitant to vote against him, because he appeared to be qualified, but they hadn't done the due diligence to vote for him.

[SuburbanPioneer]

Originally Posted by Merge

Why is that exactly? Because you know something (anything) about standards and best practices for hiring a new superintendent for a large urban school district?

Again. The most imminent and relevant question is "who was responsible for selecting and hiring the outside consultant?" Once you have that information, you can move to the next step in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, rather then acting impetuously.

This article that I posted earlier on here described the process in details:

With superintendent stepping down, search for Pittsburgh Public Schools chief begins | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

TLDR: Two board members met a guy at a conference who was advertising his services there. One board member gets particularly excited about the guy. Back home she recommends his services to the rest of the board. Voting was scheduled for the night when the board had to argue about including Wilkinsburg HS into the the city school district. At the end of the meeting voting for the search firm took place. Out of 8 board members, 4 votes yes, 1 votes no and 3 choose not to vote at all, names and their corresponding votes posted in the article. The three newly elected board members where purposefully not included in the vote. Of those members who chose not to vote at all, at least one admitted that the reason was that he had issues with the firm selection process.

Also, an independent group consisting of people with experience hiring top admin officials for the city said that the search firm selection process had issues and wasn't transparent.

This was all brought up to the public back in early November.

[MountainDewGuy]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The article I linked to says...



Therefore it seems to be on Regina Holley (Board President, District 2) and Thomas Sumpter (District 3).

FWIW, Brian Perkins has a much more impressive-sounding resume than his "hire" does, so I can see why Board members may have thought he was qualified for the job. They still should have contacted other people however.



One current board member voted against hiring Brian Perkins: Cynthia Falls. Another three weren't on the board a the time of the vote. Thus if you consider hiring Mr. Perkins to be the primary mistake, they aren't all equally to blame.

You are correct. If they were not a current board member at that time, then they should not be held accountable. Did Cynthia Falls vote for the hire?

[Enough_Already]

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

You are correct. If they were not a current board member at that time, then they should not be held accountable. Did Cynthia Falls vote for the hire?

But, they should be accountable for the ultimate hire. Did they just assume his resume was true? Did they ask if the statements made on his resume were true?

[SuburbanPioneer]

Originally Posted by eschaton

FWIW, Brian Perkins has a much more impressive-sounding resume than his "hire" does, so I can see why Board members may have thought he was qualified for the job.

I honestly don't. Here's a project proposal his firm sent earlier this year to another school district. PPS likely received very similar language in their proposal:

http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/mediaroom/D...%20Perkins.pdf

This is how he describes his company:

Dr. Brian K. Perkins is the single member minority business owner of the Perkins Consulting Group, LLC and has maintained 100% ownership since inception.

Sure he's not the only one doing the work:

The principal and senior consultants affiliated with the firm are former school board presidents and members and urban school superintendents.

The company address is 100 York St, Ste 11B, New Haven, CT. Which is a condo building, likely his private residence: http://utnewhaven.com/UTNewHaven.com/About_Us.html

To be clear, he is a college professor doing active research related to urban school education. As most professors do, he has a side consulting business, which usually involves himself and his graduate students doing some projects on the side. In his particular case, he calls his buddies in other urban school districts to help him out with a gig or two. Yes, he might have done some great research in China and Brazil, but he is just not set up to do large scale projects that require real accountability as opposed to occasional research paper publications. So now it comes back to bite him, as it should.

There is absolutely no way would I consider him as a candidate for a large scale talent search for the top admin position of a large school district, urban or not.

[Goinback2011]

From PPG:

Start over, city schools: The Pittsburgh Public Schools cannot function with Anthony Hamlet as superintendent | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[corpgypsy]

Originally Posted by Goinback2011

From PPG:

Start over, city schools: The Pittsburgh Public Schools cannot function with Anthony Hamlet as superintendent | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Bravo, Post-Gazette Editorial Board! Well stated!