Ron Greco, the president of the Jersey City Education Association (JCEA), the local arm of the teachers union, made an impassioned plea to the Jersey City School Board late last week to forgo a superintendent search and instead appoint currently-Interim Superintendent Norma Fernandez as the permanent chief of New Jersey’s second largest school district. I have no opinion on whether Fernandez is the right woman for the job but here are some errors Greco made in his presentation to school board members.

• Greco says that opening up a search will lead to special interests– “the Statehouse, the Department of Education, City Hall,” according to the Jersey Journal–putting pressure on the board to select their preferred candidates. Certainly, Jersey City is one of those school districts like Newark and Elizabeth where city politics is closely interwoven with schools. One example: 7 of the 9 school board members were selected and boosted by JCEA members, which Greco leaves out of his list of “special interests.” But, in fact, school board members have no obligation to listen to any conscience but their own. And, really, if the 7 JCEA-aligned board members follow their benefactors’ instructions, Fernandez is in no danger of not making the final cut.
• Greco says the state Department of Education told NJEA “that the school board does not need to conduct a national search for a superintendent. He said hiring a firm to conduct national searches can cost more than $100,000.” Whoa, Nellie! First of all, Jersey City regained local control four years ago so the state DOE has no influence over whom the board chooses. Any school board can do a search or not, although there is certainly more public credibility if the board does its due diligence by surveying the pool of superintendents available for this job. (Note: former superintendent Franklin Walker’s salary was $245,000 and he retired with a $200,000 bonus check. Attractive, maybe?)
• Also, superiintendent searches don’t cost $100,000. That’s silly. $25K? Sure. But lets not quadruple the expense involved.
• “If you want to do a search, you can do a search, but you don’t need a national search,” Greco said. “Especially, those of you who voted no on the budget, I would hope you would be as conservative to spending money on a search when we have a very qualified young lady, Dr. Fernandez, who has stepped in and has been leading the district so far.” Um, that’s a lovely sentiment. Dr. Fernandez is 62.