Too many politicians to clean up schools mess

How many politicians does it take to replace a light bulb they broke?

Apparently more than we can count on.

It appears it takes at least four D.C. politicians — the mayor, the D.C. Council chairman, a council committee chairman and the school board president — to fly across the country (using precious public money) to pursue one candidate for what is arguably the most important job in the District: public schools superintendent.

And we wonder about government waste. The way these folks throw around other people’s money is amazing.

Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective and productive to bring the candidates for school superintendent to the place where they will be employed? Oops, tried that already.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams is a peculiar politician. He says education is such a priority that he’s ready to stake his political future on it. But he didn’t bother to stay stateside to greet the last superintendent candidate, even though the mayor claimed it was necessary to pay him more than a half-million dollars.

That candidate, Rudolf Crew, felt “dissed” by the mayor and flew south to sunny Florida.

To save face, the fumbling D.C. contingency flew west this week to coastal California with a $350,000 salary to offer the next superintendent-in-waiting.

It appears that the globe-trotting Mr. Williams cannot conduct important city business unless he’s not in the city. No wonder former Mayor Marion Barry feels emboldened to step into the political arena again.

All of this leads one civic activist to pose a question: Should D.C. voters be offended by a mayor who dismisses their objections to his school takeover plan but is willing to drop it when an outsider — a prospective employee, at that — opposes it?

Who’s playing whom here?

First off, this red-eye junket will not provide Teflon Tony with the damage control he seeks to ease his embarrassment over losing yet another battle to the D.C. Council. The mayor simply does not have the votes to create a Cabinet-level education agency under his control, and his veto of a council vote for an elected school board will be overridden.

“I want to make sure that the governance of the school system over the next four years is stable,” said Carl A. Cohn, 58, the superintendent candidate du jour.

You can’t blame Mr. Cohn for wanting stability and assurances about whom he would call boss before moving his family 3,000 miles to head the perpetually beleaguered D.C. school system of 64,200 pupils and 167 hot properties. The District’s parents, students and future employers want the same stability and assurances.

Mr. Cohn, now a teacher at the University of Southern California, told The Washington Times that he views improving the performance of D.C. schools with “missionary zeal.”

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