Former Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson has been hired by the Michigan state government to help run a new program aimed at aiding failing public schools.
Goodloe-Johnson will serve asdeputy chancellor for instructional support and educational accountability for the state’s new Education Achievement System, according to a Detroit News report.
The system was created by Gov. Rick Snyder in June. It will be mostly filled with schools that struggled in the Detroit Public Schools system, but it will also include some suburban and rural schools.
The chancellor of the district,John Covington, announced the hire at a news conference Thursday. He noted that “during her tenure in Seattle, student enrollment increased, test scores outpaced state averages and private foundation support for the district increased dramatically,” according to the report.
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Goodloe-Johnson was fired by the Seattle School Board in March after a state audit revealed that $1.8 million in contracts with questionable or no public benefit passed through the district’s regional small-business contracting program. The manager of that program, Silas Potter Jr., has since been charged with theft.
Goodloe-Johnson served as superintendent in Seattle for three and a half years.
It is unclear what she has done since March. She resurfaced in April when she was named a finalist for the superintendent of the Newark Public School District in New Jersey and in August when she was named a candidate for the superintendent of Broward County Public Schools in Florida. She did not get either job.