Two years ago, after the resignation of their superintendent, the Ogden, Utah, school board chose one of its own members to take over as the leader of the schools. Brad Smith, a lawyer, may be the only superintendent in the state who has never been a teacher and has no credentials.
This is innovative, for sure. Nations like Finland and Korea would never allow a non-professional to take over a leading role in the profession. It demeans all those who worked so hard to darn credentials.
Things did not go well for Superintendent Smith. Last spring, angry parents crowded into a meeting to complain about budget cuts, overcrowded classes, and layoffs for librarians (aka “media specialists”). Smith boasted that there had been more change since he took over than in the previous two decades, but a local university professor responded that students’ lives are harmed by too much disruption.
Smith managed to find the funding to retain 7 out of 20 media specialists, but parents worried that veteran teachers were leaving the district.
Some community members complained that the source of the budget shortfall was not teachers’ salaries but administrative bloat.
Despite community concerns, the board voted two weeks ago to renew Smith’s contract. The head of the Democratic Education Caucus was baffled by the superintendent’s bonus in a time of austerity.
She said: ““We’re hearing of classroom sizes of 38, and even as high as 45 in core classes,” she said, noting national recommendations were for 26 in a secondary class. Irvine also criticized Smith’s performance-based bonuses.
“Based on an article in the Standard recently, we discovered the superintendent has received bonuses in the last years upwards of $50,000 total. How can this be when this year librarians have been eliminated, teacher and staff assistants have been either eliminated or cut full time to part time?”
Clearly, Ogden has decided to utilize a business plan. The superintendent has no education background. Class size doesn’t matter. Librarians don’t matter. The voices of concerned parents are ignored. As long as those test scores go up, the school board will declare success. After all, trained seals can perform no matter how many are in the pool.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When did “innovative” become a synonym for “half-baked?”
The Latin word that is the root of the word innovative can also mean “strange.”
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“After all, trained seals can perform no matter how many are in the pool.”
Love it.
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It sounds like Oden Utah needs a new School Board, as well. Or are those positions also appointed?
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School boards in Utah are elected. This has been a disaster for Ogden, which is one of the poorest districts in Utah. Both students and teachers are fleeing the district. I teach in a neighboring district and know several teachers in Ogden. They all fear for their jobs. The cutting of librarians and reading specialists is particularly egregious considering the number of students who need support. Thank you, Diane, for talking about this issue.
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One thing for sure, if this was their personal you know what on the line none of this would ever happen. If this was his business this would never happen as this is the path to bankruptcy. Pork the top and take from research and manufacturing, yep, that is a winning strategy. Sounds like the corporatist privatizers should go back to school and study business again to me.
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Arlington, MA hired a superintendent of schools who had no education background except a six-month crash course in how to be a superintendent. Seven years later, I think the town is still dealing with the legal bills; the superintendent resigned.
It isn’t only Utah, unfortunately.
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This will give teach for America a new idea, Superintendent for America. They can skip the messy teaching altogether.
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Ex-teacher, they already have that idea. Teach for America has two state commissioners (Huffman in Tennessee and White in Louisiana) who skipped the messy stuff about being a principal and a district superintendent and went right to the top. State Superintendents for America.
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Brad Smith has aligned himself with extreme right legislators here who have run a form of vouchers every year but one since their statewide referendum defeat in 2007. (The ringleader, State Senator Howard Stephenson, whose day job is business lobbyist to the same body in which he serves, will present at Jeb Bush’s October convention on “Extreme Choice.” http://excelined.org/national-summit/2013-agenda/)
Our schools received their first Florida-inspired school grades this year, and while every education organization in the state, including the teacher groups, PTA, and the State Superintendents Association, Smith appeared at a staged press conference at a supposed “high performing, low income” school with these legislators to tell Utah that poor schools can do just fine if they really use data like he advocates. Notice the repeated mantra that Florida’s school grades and magic data and hard work will solve poor schools. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56824588-78/schools-utah-grade-grades.html.csp
As a commenter above said, teachers and librarians are fleeing Ogden and they are having trouble hiring. The legislators blame our education colleges instead of the low pay, lack of negotiated contract, and very tough demographics of the schools.
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I graduated from Ogden High School in 1980 after receiving an education good enough to send me and other grads to Harvard-Radcliffe. It is sad to see Ogden get caught up in the ideological ed deform madness!
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I’ll say this is our community’s fault, the teachers fault and even the worthless union’s fault. The school board positions are elected by votes during mid-term or general elections. If we don’t like how the school board and their puppet the superintendent do things then is time to vote them out next time they come for re-election. Stop crying poor me, poor me and do something. By the way, I don’t have children in schoo; age anymore but as part of this community i care so I already went in the school district website and found out wich members of the school board are up for re-election. Your turn to do your homework.
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I agree community member I have 3 children in the Ogden school District in the poorest of schools. I will not be voting in those that are in office now. My children are suffering, one of my twins teachers were actually “reassigned” to a new school this year taking his class of 25 and splitting them into the other three classes that made each class close to 35 each. It has been a struggle this year for both my twins. I also graduated from Ogden High and I feel my education was a lot better then my children are getting.
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