School Information System

Grading Racine's Three Superintendent Finalists

Pete Selkowe:

Grading Racine Unified's three superintendent finalists began Monday, after a busy day of meetings with school stakeholders: students, teachers, principals, administrators and business leaders among them. The day concluded with a public forum at the Golden Rondelle, at which about 200 citizens got to hear brief statements from the candidates and their answers to submitted questions.

Everyone was well-behaved (although Bill Krummel, picketing outside, carried a sign charging the "pillars" of Unified with complicity to a murder), and all the candidates received polite applause, but when it was over there was a clear consensus.

Here's how I'd grade the three, based mostly on their appearance Monday night:

Dr. Craig Bangtson: F (because that's the lowest grade I'm allowed to give)
Dr. Barbara Moore Pulliam: B
Dr. Carlinda Purcell: A

One school board member put them in the same order after the presentation, with Purcell clearly the front-runner. When I teased a Unified principal that Bangtson would be her new boss, she said, "Don't even joke about it."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 17, 2008 10:00 AM
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