January 23, 2016

The news is burning through Minneapolis like electricity flying along a high wire:

MICHAEL GOAR WITHDRAWS FROM
MINNEAPOLIS SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH

From the Minneapolis Public Schools’s communications department:

Today Interim Superintendent Michael Goar sent a letter to Minneapolis Public Schools Board Chair Jenny Arneson requesting that his name be withdrawn immediately from consideration for the position of Superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools. Arneson, in response to Goar’s request, has respectfully removed Goar from consideration for the post.

In his letter Goar indicated that his decision to withdraw was solely based upon his own observation and belief that his candidacy has, unfortunately, become a distraction to the ultimate goal of educating Minneapolis children in a spirit of excellence  – and that withdrawing would be the best way to allow the work to move forward toward achieving that goal.

From Goar’s point of view, I am sure it is accurate to say that the sole reason he is withdrawing is because his candidacy has become a distraction. And I agree that Goar’s withdrawal is the “best way to allow the work to move forward” in Minneapolis.

But when I think of why Goar’s candidacy may have failed, I think of this. In the last couple of years, Goar helped direct at least $1 million in district money to the District Management Council–a group of Boston-based consultants whose expensive advice justified the upheaval in Minneapolis’s special education department, but otherwise amounted to nothing.

Meanwhile, Goar cut bus monitors from this year’s budget, meaning more than twenty high needs bus routes in Minneapolis were left without an additional support person. The amount saved? Around $200,000.

Perhaps, then, Goar’s priorities are catching up with him.

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