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Point/Counterpoint: Can a local lead Albuquerque Public Schools?

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Point

Joline Gutierrez Krueger: A successful insider could best navigate this unique district

A room full of frustrated parents, and Tim Whalen was ready for them — even the guy whose problems with Albuquerque Public Schools were so endless that the other parents had already grown weary of his griping.

The parents met that July evening to express their concerns over a number of issues, many that boiled down to the way they believed the elementary school principal had scoffed at their troubles.

By meeting's end, Whalen, there as the cluster leader for the school, had the parents charmed and handled and excited about the change they felt sure was coming.

I was one of them.

(One month later, by the way, the elementary school principal was out.)

Afterward, the obnoxious guy shook Whalen's hand, saying, "You're all right, Whalen."

I turned to school board member Mary Lee Martin, seated next to me, and said, "Hey, why not Whalen for new superintendent?"

Martin, who has already publicly stated that she wants a national search for the new APS boss, smiled in a way that only slightly masked abject dissent and whispered, "We'll see."

As we embark on a search for a new APS superintendent, perhaps we need look no further than the local leaders already championing the fight for better education, Whalen top among them.

With 35 years at APS — more than half of that time as Manzano High principal, which makes him the longest serving principal in the district — Whalen has shown he has the stomach to remain energized, idealistic and able to finesse the boundless idiosyncrasies of APS that have shriveled lesser souls or promoted them to the central office cocoon of incompetence.

APS officials say it would be unprecedented for a principal to make the leap to the superintendent's post.

But why not? Who knows better how to run the schools than someone who is running a school?

Beth Everitt, the latest sapless locally produced superintendent, lost touch with the hearts and minds of APS long ago as she served her requisite time in the mind-numbing, lemming-leading, needless administrative world of assistant superintendents.

Principals like Whalen are still about the business of education, not the business of bureaucracy.

They are not high in some ivory tower in some city far away but right here right now. We know what they can do because we can see it for ourselves.

Whalen turned what had been a gang-ridden, grade-sucking high school into one of the better ones in the city by harnessing his pit bull perseverance — he works about 70 hours a week — and bringing everyone else on board.

A local leader like Whalen also knows what he's in for with the crazy politics of Albuquerque, our unique culture and the "Well, this is how we've always done it" mentality so perverse and pervasive here.

Brad Allison, the last "outside" superintendent, never understood how to handle that. He evaporated in a haze of alcohol and rancor after only 3 1/2 years.

The next superintendent needs to be able to work with school board members, something akin to handling a hornet's nest bare-handed.

Everett could do that. But she lost the knack for speaking and understanding principals, teachers, students and their parents.

Whalen, charismatic and confident, has made a career out of connecting with students and supervisors and everyone in between. He proved that to me that night in July.

APS' latest foibles have sent a chill through those of us who have grown sick and tired of one superintendent after another botching up our schools and costing us a heftier chunk of change — first to attract them and then to get rid of them.

Now more than ever, it's time we the people help decide who will lead APS, rather than leaving all the decisions to a school board that brought us Allison and ballyhooed Everitt.

Someone who's already on the job right here, whose credentials we can see for ourselves. Someone we know. Someone whose heart and mind and vision have been honed here, who fits here because he or she already understands that here is someplace special and that our kids are even more so.

Counterpoint

Phill Casaus: Search the nation for superintendent of strength, vision

There are dangers in holding up Joseph Robitaille, Lillian Barna, Peter Horoschak, or goodness knows, Brad Allison as beacons to illuminate the following argument. All were "outside" superintendents at Albuquerque Public Schools; none have statues commemorating their tenures.

But never has this district needed a newcomer more — someone who promises a head-to-toe transformation in the way APS goes about doing its business, its education, its planning.

• The district needs a set of fresh eyes.

In other words, it needs a man or woman who can assess where public education must go in the next 10 years without being hamstrung by history or the ever-present "We can't do it that way, because we've never done it that way" nonsense that pervades the district's mindset. More than any single problem, that's what kills APS: fear of the Big Idea.

• The district needs a smile.

It's time for a happy warrior at APS — someone who not only can take the flak from parents, media, legislators and the mayor, but who can return it with a grin and humor. Nothing paralyzes critics like a laugh; nothing encourages them like a flinch or a grudge. APS seems sponsored by Grimace Inc.

I can't help but think that an outsider — the right kind, at least — would not be bamboozled by the difficulties of this job if he or she had seen similar problems in other locales — a Denver, a Tucson, a Seattle, a Salt Lake City.

• The district needs a strong set of vertebrae.

Ever notice how APS insiders seem weighed down the moment they get into the big chair? You saw it with Jack Bobroff and Joseph Vigil and Beth Everitt — no statues there, either. Caught between what they perceived as sacred cows and don't-tread-on-me land mines, all seemed stifled and tentative. If we can agree on one thing, let it be this: The next superintendent cannot be a wilting, waffling wallflower.

• The district needs legs.

As in movement. As in 100 mph, 24/7. The truth is, a superintendent can't wait for an advisory committee or a cluster leader or a district spokesman to run ahead of the approaching train — and that's exactly what insiders in big organizations tend to do. Insiders delegate, then abdicate when some of the houseplants on the Albuquerque Board of Education start asking questions.

"OK, smart guy," you're probably saying by now, "exactly where do we find this Wondercandidate?"

Truth is, I don't have the locale or the individual pinned down. But I know they're out there — visionary people who would see the possibilities, not just the pitfalls, of Albuquerque Public Schools.

I hate to say it, but if there's a template for the kind of outsider I envision, it's probably the one set by . . . yes . . . Brad Allison.

No, not that Allison — the troubled, chemically altered, union-bashing, tortured soul whose career immolation in 2001 probably set the district back a decade.

No, it's the other Allison who stirred the imagination — the guy who espoused more flexibility for all schools, not just charters, who actually talked about accountability from administrators, who had ideas about how a big-city district could become a model, not muddled.

Allison, of course, failed. Before he pulled the pin on himself and blew up all over the district's credibility, his real problem was that he didn't have the personal warmth to persuade rank-and-file teachers that he was someone to be trusted.

But a long vision beyond the next board meeting was what Allison offered, and that is something his successors, Vigil and Everitt, never really mastered.

The district screams out for a big-picture thinker now. Someone new, who might see APS for what it is — troubled and ungainly, but rife with chances for success. I can't believe that a bright, energetic, happy-to-be-here leader wouldn't be perfect for the job.

Normally, you'd say familiarity with the hothouse flowers inside APS would be a plus. And even in recent years, that would be true. This time, no.

It's time for someone of national stature.

Time for someone worthy of a statue.