Local strife means national embarrassment for Kansas City school

The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- This school district has a revolving door of superintendents -- 18 have walked in and out over the last 30 years. And the search for No. 19 has become a mess all its own.

The problem, national educators say, is a school board divided politically and racially -- and saddled with the decades-long task of desegregating classrooms and raising poor test scores. On top of that, the district lacks full accreditation by the state of Missouri, and local businesses are losing confidence in its ability to provide skilled workers. In fact, the Kansas City School District's reputation is so bad that its day-to-day operations must be approved by a federal court- ordered oversight panel. Former Mayor Emanuel Cleaver once floated the idea of a mayoral takeover of the district, much like Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Cleveland. He recently declared that the district's bungled attempts to hire a new superintendent were a "national embarrassment." "This district needs to be put out of its misery," board member Fifi Wiedeman said at a recent meeting. "I'm telling the judge to take us over." The school board is down to its fourth -- and last -- candidate. Nos. 1, 2, and 3 withdrew, and the man considered by many to have the best credentials pulled out deep into the negotiations, which he likened to "used car salesmanship." The board's attitude, Pascal Forgione said last week, "didn't reinforce the ability to build trust and confidence. There is a whole lack of trust, and if that is the culture, then they misread this person." Forgione, a former Education Department commissioner and current consultant to Education Secretary Richard Riley, said he was low- balled by the district's $140,000 base salary proposal, which many educators say is too low for such a rescue project. Board member Lance Loewenstein defended the negotiations, saying Forgione's withdrawal "doesn't mean we're idiots. It just means we're not a good fit." Outside educators and even some board members see something different: a dysfunctional board routinely sidetracked by internal bickering and racial innuendo. "I think people understand that the Kansas City board is divided by race, by perspective, by outlook and by political interest," said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council on Great City Schools, a Washington-based group representing the nation's largest urban districts. "But other major cities have racially and politically diverse boards as well, and I don't know of any that have played out their division to the extent that Kansas City has." The nine-member board is made up four whites, three blacks and two Hispanics. There are five women and four men who hold the unpaid, elected positions. The district has been without a superintendent since October, when Henry Williams, who is black, left after board members questioned his fiscal management and leadership skills. Williams' supporters -- including black board member Terry Riley -- suggested he was let go because of his color. Both Forgione and the board's first choice -- retired Air Force Major Gen. Jay Edwards -- are white. This week, the board is expected to offer the job to Oklahoma businessman Benjamin Demps Jr., the final candidate. He and the third candidate to drop out, Grandview, Mo., superintendent John Martin, are black. Though the board's minority members say race isn't the ultimate litmus test for superintendent candidates, member Lee Barnes, who is black, suggested it could be a guide for a district whose 36,000- student enrollment is predominantly black. "I would look for somebody who I think would have a sensibility and an understanding of where our young people are coming from," he said. Race has dogged the district for decades. In 1985 a federal judge ordered what would become one of the nation's largest-ever desegregation payouts, a ruling that forced Missouri to spend more than $2 billion on the district over the next 14 years. Results of the effort were mixed, and critics chided the district's lavish spending on plush buildings, an Olympic-size swimming pool and other expensive extracurricular tools -- all of which couldn't budge test scores. State test scores released last November showed 65 percent of Kansas City's 10th grade black students scored at the bottom level of achievement in science. In math, 75 percent of Kansas City's black 10th graders ranked at the bottom. Perhaps more disturbingly, more than 48 percent of Kansas City's secondary students who were supposed to take the math test either didn't finish the test or skipped it entirely, officials said. Raising those scores will be crucial to the next superintendent. Some observers say stagnant performance could increase pressure on the incoming administration and perhaps lead to state or federal control of the district. Urban districts nationwide have historically struggled to gain consensus among their policy makers. Such districts usually have large school boards, whose elected members must answer to constituents. Those pressures are then passed on to the appointed superintendent, and many of them can't cope; the average tenure of a superintendent in a large urban district is about three years, Casserly said. "Three years is way too short under the best of circumstances," Casserly said. "But Kansas City's is even shorter. You can't get meaningful reform or any momentum behind you with that kind of turnover."

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