One solution to DISD's ongoing troubles is to split the district into three or four smaller districts, each run by a separate superintendent and funded independently — the smaller units should make for more homegrown and attentive governance.
As long as each smaller unit receives the same amount of funding for student education, it shouldn't be a problem, right? And maybe the Texas Rangers will win the World Series next year, too.
Well, how about this idea: Where is it written that an urban school district has to have a superintendent who runs the whole show? Why can't the DISD board hire a superintendent for academics (a job current Supt. Michael Hinojosa seems to have done well) and a separate superintendent for finance (obviously, this hasn't been Hinojosa's strong suit)?
Two superintendents, each reporting to the board rather than each other, so each is free to focus on an important district task that he or she is qualified to handle. Given the current situation, something like this makes a lot more sense to me than looking for and never finding the proverbial needle-in-the-haystack every two to three years, when DISD's superintendent generally wears out his or her welcome.
Better yet: When either the academic or the financial guy/gal inevitably wears out his or her welcome, we'll still have some continuity because only half of that equation will be null. As we've discovered during the latest budget crisis, it makes a whole lot of sense to have the financial people simply be responsible for telling the educational people how much money they have to spend, and to empower the educational people to spend what they're given — and no more.
Running an urban school district like Dallas' — fraught with racial overtones, funding problems, huge inequities regardless of how the pie is cut up, and media attention that delights in finding the potholes in the road — is, in my humble opinion, a hopeless job that simply can't be done well over a long-enough period of time to keep every constituency happy. And it's probably fair to say that a good academician is probably not also going to be a good financial strategist.
Since we're not going to be able to make DISD smaller and more manageable, why not do the next best thing: Make the job of running the school district more manageable?
Comments