End justifies the means

In the end, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday, pragmatism won over process in the hiring of a new superintendent for the Boston public schools.

Way back when, the mayor had appointed a search committee, which was to hand him a list of finalists, who would come to Boston and submit to a series of public interviews before a selection.

That's not how it worked out. The search committee last met in June. There were no public interviews. And instead of a list of finalists there was just a selection -- Manuel Rivera, currently the superintendent in Rochester, N.Y. Almost all of the public found out about his selection in the newspaper.

``We had a process," Menino said of the search that imploded in June, after the names of five finalists appeared in the Globe. ``And the process failed us. The process ended up in the newspapers."

Four of the five -- including Rivera, temporarily -- withdrew from consideration soon after.

Rivera, who will take over next summer, appears to be a popular choice, and for good reason. His tenure in Rochester has been widely hailed, and he has had measurable success in many areas considered urgent in Boston, including narrowing the achievement gap between black and Latino students and their white and Asian peers.

Rivera was the leading choice from the beginning -- and apparently the only choice once the search went underground. Still, Menino had the last word and had never met him. That was rectified in July, when Rivera came to town for an interview at the Parkman House.

``I sat down with him and talked about things I care about -- education, the achievement gap, kids who don't get a fair shake in school -- and I was greatly impressed by his sincerity," Menino said.

Despite Rivera's strong references, Menino said he entered the interview skeptically. ``I asked a lot of questions, and he gave me the right answers. It wasn't smooth, it was substantive. It was insightful. It was all the things you look for in a superintendent for Boston."

Their second meeting, Menino said, was about 10 days ago. By then, the only real issue was whether Rivera was willing to retire from Rochester to come here.

Menino said a number of community and business leaders volunteered to go to Rochester to help recruit Rivera. Their help turned out to be unnecessary.

``He's done everything he can do in Rochester," Menino said. ``He's had two tours of duty there."

When Rivera takes over next July, plenty of challenges will await him. While outgoing superintendent Thomas Payzant is greatly admired in education circles, the performance of many students in the system is simply unacceptable. A third of Boston's students drop out. The system is better than it was a decade ago, but families haven't stopped leaving the city to avoid dealing with the schools.

Menino said he had no second thoughts about pursuing the search behind closed doors. ``If it had leaked out the way it did previously, we never would have had a chance to get him."

Months ago, there was talk that a more open selection process, along with public interviews of candidates, would build consensus behind an eventual head of the system. That person would then begin with good will from the community.

Instead, Rivera will have to generate that good will on his own -- beginning today, when he comes to town to begin meeting the public.

Interestingly, any negative reaction to Rivera's hiring has been muted. Those who were most critical about how the choice was made seem to have decided that getting the right person was all that mattered.

Boston's schools are at a critical juncture. It isn't just the achievement gap that's worrisome; it's the gap between what the Boston schools are and what they should be. If Rivera can successfully close that, no one will care how he got here.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.