Doug Grow makes a good point. So long as we are populated by so MANY people with a vendetta on against the public schools, you'll only get masochists applying for the job. Would YOU want to step onto a firing line where a lot of small-minded and adverse people just can't WAIT for you to fail? And then when another city says they'll give you a whopping raise, I just can't see how Minneapolis people could be surprised that our super would want it. No question, the locals here are going to have to decide they WANT a public school system or the word is going to be out there that the job is nothing but grief.
I was just looking at the websites of the two districts. It appears that the Memphis district spends 42 cents for every dollar spent by Minneapolis on a per-pupil basis. I guess in that respect, Superintendent Johnson is jumping from the frying pan to the fire. If she thought she couldn't educate with the budget cuts they handed her here, I'm wondering how she'll manage when she STARTS 58 percent behind. Also, it appears the school board there is pretty divided. I don't know to what extent you could say that of the Minneapolis board, but my impression is that our board isn't that overtly political (though we know that some people who are didn't manage to get on......so maybe that says that the voters here aren't looking for that in a board candidate).
As far as the concept that an employed person is making a sacrifice when they are earning a living, I'll buy that in SOME circumstances. Social workers get very little for trying to help families keep it together. And in some places and times, teachers do, too. But given how long the Minneapolis superintendent has been in ADMINISTRATION, most of her teaching career (maybe all) was when the public-school-friendly DFL was in charge. So, I hardly think she's the one to credit with sacrifice. The ones who are doing that are those teachers who teach in the inner city with the Republicans controlling the purse-strings. THEY must be REALLY dedicated because the party has been on an anti-MEA/Education Minnesota vendetta for some time, really looking for ways to simply wipe out public education. Still, it is odd to see Johnson moving to Memphis where the budget is even leaner than it is here. Is it ONLY because they offer her more money? Doesn't it bug her that the teachers (of which she was once one) get thin gruel? And what do the kids get there? I don't know the answers, but I find the data sort of provocative.
Anyway, an administrator who doesn't want to be here anymore is not someone we want in this vital role. The school board should look for someone who credibly wants to do the job, who actually values the Minneapolis kids here and now, not ten or fiften years ago.
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