In search of stability
Finding a new chief for the Boston public schools should be easy.
The system supposedly is coming off a decade of solid progress under the leadership of Thomas W. Payzant. His retirement last week had been coming for years, giving everyone concerned plenty of time to plan an orderly succession. There was broad agreement on the qualities the new boss needed to bring to the table.
Why, then, have things descended into such chaos?
Last week's short list of five contenders for the job is much shorter following the withdrawal of three of the contenders. Worse, the departed include all of the finalists who have been superintendents. It's July, and a search that was once expected to be wrapped up by June is headed back to the drawing board.
``Certainly we would like to have someone by the end of the year," Elizabeth Reilinger, cochairwoman of the search committee, said yesterday, ``but the priority is really finding the best person."
That pretty much takes any timetable out of the process.
Both Reilinger and Mayor Thomas M. Menino pointed yesterday to two factors in the withdrawals: the public disclosure of the candidates for the post and a reluctance among candidates to take part in a public interview process long promised to parents and community groups.
The thinking is that top-flight candidates would not want to suffer the embarrassment of being rejected after such a public process. In the case of Superintendent Manuel J. Rivera of Rochester, N.Y. , whom many considered the front-runner, that could also have meant returning to his present system after openly flirting with another job.
Menino said he is committed to the public interviews, for now. But he left himself plenty of wiggle room, pointing out that many cities have moved away from that approach. ``The public process piece is more of a problem than most people realize," he said. ``I think, in this case, it's become a burden for us.
``I'm one of those guys that when I give my word it would take a real powerful argument to go back on my word. But, right now, I'm a little betwixt and between about whether we should continue with it, because we lost several good candidates."
Reilinger also raised the possibility of altering, or abandoning, the public interviews. ``If at the end of the day the public process is the one insurmountable obstacle to getting the best person," she said, ``then I think it's like anything else in life: You revisit it."
This much is clear: The search committee, which once thought its work was almost done, isn't about to go out of business. Reilinger said the committee will meet next week and seek to expand the list of candidates. That will mean looking again at candidates who have been rejected, an unappealing prospect, as well as urging at least some of the dropouts to reconsider. The plan was never to have just two candidates, Reilinger admitted. A list with no experienced superintendents is also unacceptable.
I asked Menino what he would do if he didn't want to hire any of the candidates the committee presents as finalists. He said he doubts things will come to that. ``They understand where I am on education," he said. ``My goal is the same as theirs. Last time we had the same issues and ended up with three good finalists."
A lengthy process is not inherently bad, and Menino and Reilinger are certainly right that picking the best person is ultimately the only consideration that matters. Both said that interim Superintendent Michael Contompasis is eminently capable of guiding the ship for as long as necessary. Still, this comes at a bad time for Menino, given that he is also without a permanent police or fire commissioner or chief of staff. At some point, it would be nice to have someone running a vital city department whose title does not begin with the word interim.
For all Payzant's critics, perhaps we've all been spoiled by 11 years of relative calm in the Boston schools. The man is barely gone, and all that stability seems to have left with him.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 
