For schools, a plain dealer

NEW LY NAMED Boston school superintendent Carol Johnson arrived as advertised this week: composed and plain-dealing. In her first public appearance in Boston on Tuesday, the 59-year-old, much sought-after Memphis school superintendent signaled that she isn't coming here just to cap off her career in peace and quiet.

Few public school superintendents would ever be caught in front of television cameras expressing support for independent charter schools, which compete with local school systems for students and funding. But Johnson said she supports charter schools and other alternative models that expand educational opportunity. More than 4,000 Boston students now attend state charter schools, which operate free of central office interference and union regulations. The city is better off for it, especially because the public school system responded to the charter challenge by creating in-district pilot schools that offer similar flexibility around curriculum and scheduling. Johnson was right to place a higher value on competition and student achievement than on appeasing organized labor or marching in lockstep with the mayor, a critic of independent charters.

Johnson's appointment could also restore some interest in a student assignment plan that encourages children to attend the school closest to home. She oversaw such a move as superintendent in Minneapolis. But similar efforts to restore a neighborhood school system here in 2004 collapsed when planners and the public failed to find common ground. Some minority parents in Boston still equate neighborhood schools with segregation, a legacy of the turbulent 1970s, even though whites now make up only about 14 percent of the student population. Johnson could advance her interest in promoting greater parental involvement and save money on transportation costs if she can manage to destigmatize neighborhood schools.

Johnson should be playing to her strength in coming weeks as she meets with parents, education advocates, and community groups. She has a strong reputation as an attentive listener with a pleasing manner. But Bostonians would gladly sacrifice amiability for a leader who could reduce the dropout rate and eliminate the persistent performance gap between white and minority students.

Former school superintendent Thomas Payzant warned last year that the demands on his successor's time would be intense because Bostonians don't like working through the system's five deputy superintendents. But that could say more about the need for a coherent strategy in the central office than it does about any predisposition to go straight to the top. In addition to her many external strengths, Johnson will also need to bring her best inside game to succeed here.