Why Seattle must control its schools

Without more good schools, the city is lost.

That's why there is such a sense of urgency surrounding the Seattle School District and the search for leadership at the top. This crisis has been building for several years and is cresting now because the majority of the School Board members have failed to cohesively address the twin obstacles to success by any measure of leadership: separating the trivial from the significant, and presiding over a democratic institution instead of just riding it. The loss of another superintendent within a few years, the departure of the district's chief financial officer and many staff members, the sense that anarchy is just a finger-snap away at most board meetings, the calamitous test results at some schools and the lack of real stature among board members all say: This is not Seattle's image of itself.

Seattle has problems but it prides itself on being a living urban center, a city with rich talent and both a creative and entrepreneurial class. Such places do not have the failing school systems of blighted East Coast cities.

That's as much the driver of the coming takeover of Seattle schools as any concern over math standards. A global city at the center of a silicon empire cannot see its school system disappear into irrelevance.

On today's editorial page, we point to the failure of two cultures meeting at Rainier Beach High School. Students of the school showed a passage rate in science on the WASL 10th-grade test of 3 percent. That's almost a statistical accident. Yet, the district and some school supporters are wary of a proposal by a reputable technology enterprise to bring its magic to Rainier Beach.

Reading the editorial on the next page is like reading a synopsis of the Seattle School District of the past decade, a slow spin toward deliberate mediocrity.

Superintendent Raj Manhas correctly and enthusiastically points to the successes of the district. He says the district stands up in some categories as well as or better than the Bellevue schools. He believes upcoming closures and a new transportation plan will bring more efficiencies to the district. And Manhas also points out he and his staff have brought the district out of financial insolvency.

What that analysis forgets is that the School District and most of its board have lost the confidence of the pros who run the city and the region. Seattle's mayor, the King County executive, corporate leaders, former School Board members, editorialists, much of the professional class, have collectively reached a consensus that a failed School Board cannot be trusted to match the resources it has to the decisions it must make.

Look at the establishment's reaction:

• Mayor Greg Nickels calls on a former mayor, Norm Rice, to step in as interim superintendent;

• A community school summit is suggested, without asking the School Board about it;

• A prominent state legislator plans to introduce a bill modifying how board members are selected;

• A former School Board member delivers a speech to downtown Rotary, one of those establishments that start with a capital "E," and says the time has come for an appointed board;

• The Times editorial page calls for the resignation of five elected members of the board, keeping just two — flinty and smart Cheryl Chow and earnest newcomer Michael DeBell.

In sum, that's nearly an unprecedented loss of confidence in an elected board.

The capital "E" establishment isn't what it used to be some decades ago. The power of the neighborhoods and the community groups is equally influential, although they tend to focus on what's local, first and always. The result, so far, has been some pampered, beloved and successful boutique public schools that are supported and defended by the neighborhoods.

Adrift at the top is a school system that is studded with talent in a city that still sees itself competitive and attractive to urban families. If that attraction is lost because of a dysfunctional school administration, the city's loss is too great and provokes a political intervention. That's what's going on now.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com