Setting the Bar High.

EVENT

As I've written about on past occasions, Walter Milton, Jr. became superintendant of the Flint School District short of two years ago. He is currently one of two candidates for that position with the Springfield School District in Illinois. If he leaves, the FBOE will have lost three superintendants in as many years.

Here, then, is the news as reported (pretty comprehensively) by the Flint Journal. Be forewarned, there's a lot, and it's all pretty depressing. First, on Monday, Milton announced his job search. The Journal analyzes what is not exclusively a "Flint Problem," yet one which, in light of the radical reforms Milton has initiated and which are currently in progress, must be particularly damaging to Flint. In the middle of these reforms, a likely consequence of Milton's resignation would be the appointment of an interim chief from within, which implies at best a practical disconnect from Milton's policies, and an awful lack of continuity. Oh, and to top it off, there is no consensus on this year's budget, but Milton, the board, and the Teacher's union all estimate a ten million dollar deficit if they're lucky. An lastly, the school district probably will lose less than eight hundred students, if they're lucky.

I haven't posted on Flint politics much this month (and let's be honest, in a city like Flint, school board superintendant is a political position), but I have written a lot about Lyndon Johnson. Now I'm actually struck by a number of similarities between LBJ and Milton.

It's not farfetched.

Both are / were visionaries who, put in a position of power, initiated a sweeping array of reforms to put a heavily compromised constituency in a position of prosperity and success. Both won a degree of unqualified support from their legislative partners (congress / the Board of Education), to push through their ambitious policies... as circumstances determined, that support may or may not have been warrented (or, to be fair, was warranted, but not without a more deliberate and well-researched execution). Both had / will probably have brief tenures that came to unexpectedly short ends. Both contended with controversy resulting from both their polities (the Great Society / the Academy system), and from personal indescretions (the Gulf of Tonkin / the hiring of Julius B. Anthony).

Like Johnson, Milton may leave his position in the midst of public controversy.

"It's like I've been made to be a character I don't even know," the Journal quoted him as saying.

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I'm not suggesting that this particular comparison is profound. Many others might have been made, and I can make this one simply because I've been reading a lot about LBJ lately. Still, where there is a persistent pattern of similarity, and where the similarities are relevant, and in this case they are, that, I believe, is where history is at its most persuasive.

As with the most successful of the Great Society programs, many of Milton's reforms may bear fruit if they are allowed some time to develop. I'm often skeptical about breaking up schools and communities, and I have general objections to gender-based academies. Still, the Flint schools needed a dramatic shake-up, and since Milton's reforms are researched and grounded enough, I believe it is necessary to give them the chance to bear fruit. That is one part of the lesson.

The other, however, is directed to Milton himself, and if not, to his successor, and speaks to the situation on the ground: why, in the end, Johnson did not succeed as he hoped to. Flint cannot adequately compensate the superintendant it needs right now, and that's someone that anyone applying for this position ought to consider. There will be many years of a thankless job before it becomes remotely worthwhile. It has always seemed a fitting irony to me that Flint's greatest leaders and administrators seem to be pulled from municipal ranks into interim positions. First, they are intimately acquanted with the nastiest of the system's flaws, and second, they know they only have to deal with it for a finite period of time. What is needed is someone with the first quality, but not the second. What is needed is a visionary with accounting skills. What is needed is a reformer who is willing to negotiate. What is needed is a former teacher with enough talent to run for mayor. What is needed is continuity. That is what is needed. It is needed. It is all necessary in any formulation of success.

In short, Milton or his successor need nothing less than to be the most versatile, talented, and committed individual working for the City of Flint.

END OF POST.