July 21, 2001

TRANSPLANTING SUCCESS INTO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

For big-city school districts to hire ``non-traditional'' superintendents may not be a tradition yet but it's definitely a trend.

In Seattle, the board was sufficiently pleased with its first non-traditional choice, Army Maj. Gen. John Stanford, to chose Joseph Olchefske, an investment banker, to succeed him.

Los Angeles picked former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer.

And Denver's new superintendent, Jerry Wartgow, previously headed Colorado's community college system.

What else do these and other non-traditional superintendents have in common? A support network constructed for them by the Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation.

Eli Broad is currently chairman of the financial services company SunAmerica Inc., and a member of the board of directors of its parent company, American International Group Inc. Before that he was founder and chairman of homebuilders Kaufman and Broad (now KB Home).

He's been active in philanthropy for a long time, having established the Broad Art Foundation in 1984. It's a sort of lending library of artwork for museums. In higher education, he has made building-sized gifts to Michigan State, the California Institute of Techonology, Pitzer College, the University of California at Los Angeles and others.

Now, though, as one of the new breed of hands-on donors who call themselves ``venture philanthropists,'' he works through the Broad Foundation, which he and his wife Edythe endowed in 1999 with $100 million and dedicated to improving elementary and secondary education especially in urban areas.

The foundation has an extensive grants program -- $10 million in its first full year -- focused on governance, management and labor relations. In cooperation with the Council of Great City Schools, it offers newly appointed superintendents the opportunity to work with a ``strategic support team'' of experienced superintendents for a one- to three-day strategic planning session. After a month, they review progress and if needed, bring in consultants to work on specific problems.

Staff members follow the progress of school searches, and offer the support package to new superintendents.

Wartgow called them right back. In his first public presentation in Denver, when he presented his plan to reorganize the district along geographical lines, he gave the foundation credit for its help in making the process go smoothly.

They gave me ``anything I needed,'' he said -- including organizational charts from 50 big-city districts, rather a mixed blessing. The foundation made it possible for him to travel to other cities, and to have superintendents elsewhere come to Denver.

The idea is that the foundation's support offers something valuable from the very first day. But what is less obvious -- at least to the new superintendents who don't bother to return the call -- is that it's a way to identify the people who are open to innovation, who are willing to take risks, who know how to move a big organization forward. They'll be tapped for bigger roles.

So in Seattle, Olchefske has worked with the Seattle Alliance for Education to develop ``a comprehensive five-year management training design for school leadership teams,'' as described in the foundation's summary of grants.

In Oakland, Calif., it's helping superintendent Dennis Chacones and his school board explore a new governance model.

Don McAdams, former board chairman in Houston, is leading a group developing a one-week residential training program for newly elected school board members.

Broad helped to recruit Romer for the Los Angeles job, and the foundation is funding a leadership development program for his management team.

In an article for the March 2001 issue of The School Administrator, Broad wrote, ``Effective, large-scale enterprises rely on human intellect and creativity to win in the competitive marketplace and to make dramatic change in the not-for-profit and government sectors of society.''

``Creativity'' is not the first word that generally comes to mind in association with ``school district.'' Helping successful, creative people transfer their skills to the new field of education may just turn a trend into a tradition.

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