Boston Public School students, parents, and teachers will get a close-up look at the city's likely next superintendent. About 40 people applied for the job. That number was whittled down to about a dozen, and now three finalists will sit for hours of public interviews.
WGBH Radio's Bianca Vazquez Toness is with our Learning Curve team. She’s been digging into the finalists' backgrounds. She spoke with WGBH All Things Considered's Judie Yuill. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Judie Yuill: So there are three finalists up for the job. Why don't we start first with the local candidate. Who is he and what can you tell us about him?
Bianca Vazquez Toness: His name is Oscar Santos, and what really distinguishes him is that he's the only one of the three that has experience running a traditional school district. He ran Randolph Public Schools for about three years. People said he was a real change agent there. When he came in, the district was in a steep decline and he made a lot of changes: he invested in literacy and extended the school day and increased mentoring for teachers. But that also ruffled some feathers and he got some push back from the school board. He ended up leaving after three years. So he came up to Boston and has been running Cathedral High School for the last several years.
Yuill: Well next there's a finalist who was recently the Commissioner of Education for the state of Minnesota. Tell us about her.
Toness: Brenda Cassellius was the commissioner of Minnesota's education department for eight years. While she was doing that job, she did some interesting things. She expanded access to preschool, and she won bipartisan support to increase school funding. And then she did something interesting - about two years ago, she put her hat in the ring to run Minneapolis Public Schools. She was turned down for the job, but in doing so, she said a lot about why she wanted to run a large urban district. Minneapolis is not that different from Boston, it's a little smaller, but the demographics are very similar. And she said that she wanted to make Minneapolis a model for closing achievement gaps.
Yuill: Now lastly, we have a candidate who spent her entire educational career in Miami. Tell us more.
Toness: Her name is Marie Izquierdo, and her job is Chief Academic Officer. She's never been a superintendent. She is in charge of a lot of stuff though, including turning around schools, and her kind of claim to fame is that during her tenure, the number of under-performing schools went from 20-percent to 2-percent. And she did that really focusing on data. The other interesting thing about her is she seems to love technology. She has distributed a ton of tablets in her district and has moved a lot of content online.
READ MORE: What Skills Would Each Finalist Bring As Boston's Superintendent?
Yuill: Well there's been a lot of anticipation around this search, especially given how the last superintendent, Tommy Chang, was asked to resign last year. There were concerns from parents and the public about whether Boston could attract high quality candidates. Based on these candidates and your research, what's the verdict?
Toness: The main criteria people have for a superintendent in a place like Boston is that you would attract someone who's doing the job now, who is a sitting superintendent, and not one of these people fits that criteria. As I said, Oscar Santos has done the job for three years, a number of years ago. Also, Brenda Cassellius ran a sort of nontraditional school district of two schools for a year. But none of them have the experience of being a sitting superintendent with a track record.
Yuill: Interim BPS Superintendent Laura Perille did not apply for the position permanently. Why’s that?
Toness: She was under a lot of scrutiny when she got this job. She was appointed, she's never been an educator, and she was under a lot of pressure from people like me, who kept asking her, "Are you interested in this job? If you're not, why don't you say that?" So back in October, she said she wouldn't apply because she thought it was a distraction.
Yuill: So these three candidates will undergo interviews next week. Can you talk a bit about the process and what will happen next after the interviews are completed?
Toness: Well in addition to these interviews, they will also meet with Mayor Marty Walsh, who appoints the school committee and is going to have some say in who is chosen. And then most likely the next week the school committee will have a meeting and they will vote.
Yuill: Thank you Bianca. That's WGBH Radio's Bianca Vazquez Toness from WGBH’s Learning Curve team, talking with us about the three finalists for the Boston Public Schools next superintendent.
Our coverage of K through 12 education is made possible with support from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
