Nashville education blogger TC Weber wrote a post today welcoming Dr. Shawn Joseph to MNPS and summing up the process that led to his hire in a winners/losers style column. So far, he sees lots of winners in a process that he describes this way:
First, there was a battle over who was going to be the interim director while the search was conducted, and that involved an ethics complaint, that, to my knowledge, has never been addressed. Then, the initial search ended with an offer to Williamson County Schools Director Dr. Mike Looney, who promptly turned it down and decided to stay in Williamson County despite having a signed letter of intent. This led to the questioning of the initial search firm and the competency of their work. The search was restarted, a new firm hired with the bill footed by a private entity, the Nashville Public Education Foundation, and community involvement was sought. A slate of finalists was unveiled sans any women candidates and again questions arose. In the end, though, there was one clear choice and the board voted 9-0 to offer the job to Dr. Joseph.
That’s a lot. And it’s been a long time coming. But, in the end, TC seems pretty happy with the result, save a desire for a bit more transparency.
Check out all of his take on the search process.
For more from TC, follow him @norinrad10
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport