THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9512290028
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Timothy Jenney apparently will be the new superintendent of schools in Virginia Beach. Good luck to him, he'll need it. Being superintendent in a district of that size is a big and perhaps impossible job.
When I heard the news about Jenney, I thought of Peter Drucker, the Catholic Church and Larry Coble - the only school superintendent I've known well enough to watch from up close.
Coble had a lot in common with Jenney. He was a young, hard-charging administrator working his way up from one school district to the next. I first saw Coble when, like Jenney in Virginia Beach, he was one of three finalists for a superintendent's job.
That's where Peter Drucker comes in. The scholar of management points out that the basic manager for the Catholic Church is the bishop and that the job requires three skills - that of the pastor, the theologian and the administrator. The three talents are rarely found in the same man, but the church has devised a solution. ``It has long been the custom to rotate temperments in filling a bishop's see. If the incumbent is a pastor. . . , he may be succeeded by a theologian or by an administrator.''
It seemed to me at the time that Coble and the other two finalists represented the three temperments necessary in a school superintendent. One was an academic visionary who knew what needed to be done to bring the schools up to date in a changing world. The second was a hands-on leader who would concentrate on the classroom and worry about the daily nuts and bolts of education.
The third was Coble whom I put down as a politician, with his slick management patter and easy way with constituents. His skill was in getting along with the various factions that want something from the schools and in balancing their demands - everyone from teachers to cafeteria workers, unions and bus drivers, parents of gifted children and parents of special-ed children, politicians and taxpayers. He managed to persuade all he was on their side. Naturally, he got the job.
Over the next several years, I grew to admire the job he did and the importance of the skill he possessed. Somehow he navigated the minefield of the school system. He got old schools beautifully refurbished and new one's built. He got a system of magnet schools up and running. He improved teacher morale and student performance. He engineered public-private partnerships with local businesses.
Politics is the art of the possible and Larry Coble innovated - as much as possible. He made the trains run on time - as much as possible. He kept divisive forces at bay - as much as possible. He did it all in the context of a racially divided school board elected by wards that pitted white against black, suburbs against inner city, haves against have-nots.
For more than a year, the board fought over redistricting. The superintendent and his staff drew and redrew lines, proposed one plan after another, were accused of obstructionism and foot dragging by one side for pointing out plans to create neighborhood schools that were 90 percent white and 90 percent black would also create court cases into the next century and a deeply divided community. For seeking compromise, they were accused by the other side of crypto-racism and selling out.
The last time I saw Larry Coble it was in the beautiful art deco library of the town's restored 1920s high school, a monument to his ability to create and preserve in the midst of destructive forces. The occasion was his farewell party. After little more than five years, the superintendent was moving on.
But he wasn't bound for even larger challenges running an even bigger system. In his mid-40s, he was making a midcourse adjustment. He was going to teach in a college of education and consult with a management think tank. Truth be told, the man I'd considered a politician was burned out by politics.
He was tired of division and rant, of demanding factions concerned with race and money and power and rights and grievances and winning. With everything except providing children with a better education. He was tired of never seeing his daughters. He was just plain tired.
Somewhere Drucker talks of careers that go up like rockets and come down like burnt-out sticks. Larry Coble was a good man who did a good job under trying circumstances and left a school system better than he found it. But he was worn down by critics and carpers, partisans and politicians.
Timothy Jenney is another energetic young superintendent climbing the ladder of success. But he's also coming from a system whose board has been described as a dysfunctional, micromanaging bunch of nuts. He's taking on the job of fixing a system that's got serious troubles. Dozens of factions know just what he should do first. School Board elections are coming in May.
To succeed, Timothy Jenney will need his own talents but he'll also need the help of people of good will - teachers, students, parents, citizens, board members. He'll need for them to be more interested in improving education than in their political pet peeve. Will he get the cooperation he needs? Good luck to him, he'll need it. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editorial-page editor of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB