Mismanagement in Seattle Public Schools: a lesson in what not to do

One of the odder facts about public education is its management structure. To wit: Veteran officials making six-figure salaries are held accountable by school boards comprised of unpaid amateurs. Or so goes the plan.

But it’s easy to see the potential for a power imbalance that favors the professionals, not the community volunteers. The consequences are visible in Seattle Public Schools, where Superintendent Brent Jones just inked a new, two-year contract with a $348,395 annual salary that includes a $14,000 raise — despite presiding over dwindling enrollments, academic stagnation and historic budget deficits. Nice work if you can get it.

That salary boost represents a 4% cost-of-living adjustment, not a bonus for performance, notes School Board President Liza Rankin. But parents are understandably incensed, since many are waiting to hear whether their child’s school will be closed to narrow the district’s yawning budget hole — now about $94 million. It’s a chasm Jones helped to create by urging the board to approve a teachers contract he knew was unsustainable.

School Board members knew it, too. But their misgivings were easy for the paid professionals — lawyers and labor negotiators — to silence. Now, here we are, facing staff layoffs, ever-larger class sizes and shuttered school buildings.

This cost-cutting is not optional. If SPS cannot present a balanced budget for next year, the district will be placed under “binding conditions” by the state education department, i.e., outsiders overseeing its finances.

The money problems might look less ugly if student outcomes were soaring. But those results are among the most disappointing of Jones’ tenure, particularly for youth of color.

By 2026, Black males in Seattle schools would significantly increase their reading and math scores, Jones once vowed. If the district could make education work for them, he said, it would work for everyone. Today, five years into that effort, 62% of Black students are not reading at grade level, and a stunning 71% perform below expectations in math.

Meanwhile, three Black students have been killed at their schools (or across the street) in the past two years. Though Jones promised to have an executive director for safety and security in place by September, no one has been named to the position. SPS is also without a chief academic officer.

Yet when recommending Jones’ new contract, Board President Rankin called him “a strong leader for racial equity and educational justice.”

It’s hard to square that statement with reality and easy to criticize everyone involved — the superintendent for poor stewardship, and the board for failing to hold him accountable. But searching for a new superintendent at this moment of chaos would hardly add stability.

The best way forward now is for board members to stiffen their spines and force Jones and his staff to up their game. The superintendent’s new contract does demand quarterly public reviews, where he will have to answer for outcomes.

That’s one step forward on what could be a long road back to making Seattle Public Schools the district that a city built on brainpower deserves.