NJ Education Report

Negotiations with Newark’s two finalists for superintendent of the tumultuous school district continue. (Is masochism part of the job description?) Meanwhile the scuttlebutt behind Seattle Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson’s sudden departure last month from her post is still emerging.

According to King 5 TV, a report was commissioned by the Seattle School Board to investigate a “cover-up” at the district’s Regional Small Business Development Program. The director of the office, Silas Potter (paging Bedford Falls) engaged in fraud, eventually stealing $1.8 million for his private company. A couple of hundred thousand dollars are still missing.

It’s the old question: what did you know and when did you know it? According to King 5 (and other sources), Goodloe-Johnson knew about it at in 2008 and withheld the information from the School Board.

No doubt there’s another side to the story and we just don’t know it yet. For starters, here’s a defense of Goodloe-Johnson by Tom Payzant of Harvard.

Goodloe-Johnson was originally a special education teacher and, later, Superintendent of the Charleston County Public Schools in South Carolina.

The Other Candidate, Cami Anderson, is Senior Superintendent at the NYC DOE. She was appointed to her NYC post in 2006, overseeing 300 alternative schools and programs for, according to her bio, “over-age, under-credited youth whose schooling has been interrupted.” Anderson was also Executive Director of Teach for America for five years and Chief Program Officer for New Leaders for New Schools, a principal-training program. Here’s more detail from Gotham Schools.