Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board Chair Eric Davis said he believes courage is the trait most needed in a new district superintendent. (Photo: Qcitymetro.com)

As the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board launches a nationwide search for a new superintendent, perhaps no one will embody that process more than board Chair Eric Davis.

In an Oct. 23 commentary published in The Charlotte Observer, Davis said the superintendent search was a chance for the board to “rebuild public trust.”

Indeed, the CMS board has been criticized, especially in the African American community, for its decision to close a number of urban schools. In the broader community, the board has taken hits for its handling of school realignment, budgeting and efforts aimed at education reform.

Davis recently met with Qcitymetro.com editor Glenn Burkins to talk about a range of topics affecting CMS. In the Q&A below, he shares some of his personal views relating to the next superintendent. (Answers were edited for brevity and clarity.)

Q. Given that students of color now make up a majority in CMS, should race be considered when hiring a new superintendent?

Well, certainly it should be one of the considerations. I think it is important for us to look for someone who can understand who we are, and race is a big part of who we are in the community. It’s a part of our history as a Southern city and Southern community. It’s a part of the challenges we’ve faced in the past being one community and working together for the education of all our children, and it’s part of our dialogue today. It shouldn’t be the only (consideration), and I would subscribe that it shouldn’t be the predominate one, but it’s an important one. It should be in a whole array of characteristics and traits we need to consider in picking our next leader.

Q. What is the single most important trait that you personally would like to see in the next superintendent?

We need a leader who has courage. I’d say that’s the most important characteristic. And that courage manifests itself in a number of different ways. It’s the ability to listen, to realize that they don’t know all the answers, and to seek input from a variety of individuals and avenues in our community. It’s the courage to be willing to push for change and to realize that a lot of what we’re doing today doesn’t work and won’t work in the future and that we need to continuously improve. Courage is the attribute I’m looking for more than any. I think I’ve been personally criticized by the Observer for not listening. I found myself flipping this weekend though “Profiles in Courage.” It reminded me of what John F. Kennedy said (about courage) when he was a U.S. senator. I think we’ve got a lot to learn from him when he said that part of our role as elected officials is to listen and to make decisions based on what our constituents are telling us, but sometimes it’s also necessary to have the courage to go a different route and even ignore the public. You have to use your judgment, not just be a seismograph for public opinion. So I think a superintendent has to have courage.

Q. Did former Superintendent Peter Gorman have that courage?

He really did. He does. He forged ahead with changes, took difficult stand when no other superintendent in our state was willing to speak out on the need for change. He’s not perfect; none of us are perfect. I know he would admit that. I think what we have to think through as citizens in our community is, how do we support a superintendent who is courageous? Our track record is that we burn them out in about three or four years. I don’t know of any organization – a business, a church, a sports team, a nonprofit – that can become a really highly performing organization with turnover that frequently. The reality is that we go through a year like we’re in now with interim leadership, and a year of a brand new superintendent -- listening, learning, getting to know us – and then two or three years of productive work before we start the cycle over again.

Q. So would it be a stretch to say that you would like to see a Gorman-esque superintendent?

Well, I think Pete has qualities that I would aspire to see in our next superintendent, courage being one of them. I’ve heard so many people comment on Pete’s responsiveness. I met with the Mecklenburg PTA Council last week and asked them what they aspired for in a superintendent, and they mentioned responsiveness and communications – personal communication skills – and they cited Pete Gorman as having those skills and emphasizing that in his staff. I think Pete was an excellent leader in terms of attracting talented members to our staff and identifying the talented members we already had here and helping them grow as professionals. So Pete has a lot of the attributes that we seek in our next superintendent, but at the same time I think we need to continue to grow and expand and look for the superintendent that’s needed for our district today.

Q. I read your recent commentary in the Observer. I then read some of the reader comments. There were four in all. One person described CMS as “a bunch of Obama’s failures.” Another person suggested splitting the suburban schools away from the urban schools. And a third described the Bright Beginnings pre-kindergarten program as “a $22 million black hole of a program that doesn’t work.” What makes you think that anyone can unite this fractured community around our schools?

No one person can. There are all sorts of undertones in those comments. There are racial undertones. There are also economic undertones. There are undertones of those that were born here and those that moved here. There are undertones of Republican and Democrat. But the biggest undertone that I hear is what I remember hearing Claude Alexander (senior pastor of The Park Ministries) tell me about two years ago. He said our biggest challenge is moving from ‘me and mine’ to ‘us and ours.’ And educating our children, I think, is where that is so pronounced. As a parent of a CMS student, I’m all about my child’s education. I have a child in the system, and that’s the number-one priority. But it’s recognizing that my child’s future is tied to your child’s future, and that the quality of education that my child gets is tied to the quality that yours gets. And so it’s being able to rise above and recognizing that what’s best for my child is what’s best for yours. Our challenge as a board is to try to develop solutions to problems and policies that enhance education for all children given the variety of needs that we face. The situations we face in the suburban parts of our community are fundamentally different than the situations in the inner city, but we educate them all. So, to be criticized, that’s just part of it. There is no person that was more criticized in our nation’s history than Abraham Lincoln. And yet I’d say no one carried more of the aspirations we have as Americans than he did. So how do we find the capacity to rise above our individual desires? We have to find a way to see that we are going to succeed more together than we are going to succeed separately and look for those points of common ground where our interests connect. It will take more than one person. No one person can do that.

Other topics Davis discussed:

Public Input
He said an online survey, currently scheduled to end Nov. 7, may be extended for another week. The survey is designed so that residents can suggest the traits they would like to see in the next superintendent.

Davis said the survey got off to a good start with about 150 people an hour logging on to take it. The most current total he had was about 6,000. A disproportionate percentage, he said, were women and CMS employees. He did not have a feel for the rate of African American participation.

Click here to take the survey.

Timeline for Selecting a Superintendent
After survey results are tabulated by an outside organization, he said, the findings will be used to shape discussion for six district meetings scheduled for early December. The board also will meet with groups representing various parts of the overall community. At least one meeting, he said, would include the NAACP, Black Political Caucus, Urban League, a representative from the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum and others.

By mid January, Davis said, the board will have developed a profile of the next superintendent using, among other factors, information gathered during the community engagement period.

The board will conduct interviews, he said, starting in mid January and will have a list of finalists by the end of February.

A new superintendent could be named by mid March.

Early Interest in the Job
“I think the day Pete (Gorman) announced his resignation, I think people started paying attention and perspective candidates started talking to either recruiters in the industry or sending (inquiries) to our HR department,” he said. “I know I got contacted by a number of search firms immediately.”

Davis said he believes the early interest was an indicator of the reputation that CMS has as a top urban school district.

Public Trust
While acknowledging that some sectors of the community no longer trust the CMS board, Davis said the decisions they made to close some schools and realign others was unavoidable.

“Those were really difficult decisions,” he said. “We were facing tremendous financial cuts. While they weren’t as bad as the state was originally forecasting, we still had to reduce our operating budget by $45 million….We couldn’t sit back and do nothing given the financial constraints we were faced with. So I don’t apologize for the fact that we had to make tough decisions; that’s just what had to happen.”

Davis said that where the board could have done a better job was in communicating with the various sectors of the community.

“The fact that most of those schools were in the African American community not only made the decision more difficult, it made the communication that much more difficult, given our history of having not well served our African American community and the history of segregation in our town,” he said. “I heard clearly: ‘Resources follow white kids.’

“I think I learned a lot about how that interaction occurs,” he added. “In the summer, what we heard overwhelmingly was that academic achievement was the number-one thing – make that the number-one factor in decision making. We heard that in all the meetings. But when it comes down to a specific action that’s going to affect your child, then the conversation immediately shifted, and it wasn’t about academic achievement anymore. It was about don’t change things.”

NEXT WEEK: Davis talks about why teachers should be paid based on performance.

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