New Face of the Seattle Public Schools: Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson Eases Into the Role of District Superintendent

J.B. Wogan
Ballard Journal

On a Thursday morning in late July, new Seattle Public Schools' Superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson arrived at Eckstein Middle School for her second school visit that day. Photographers and TV cameramen waited at the top of a cement staircase, training their lenses on Goodloe-Johnson as if she were an A-list celebrity. The superintendent, unfazed by the extra attention, smiled and stared ahead. As she was ushered into the side entrance, again in rock star-fashion, she bent an attentive ear to her friend and colleague, Chief Academic Advisor Carla Santorno.

 
Reporters crammed together to get quotes, scribbling into their notebooks or extending a microphone. What she said now, two weeks into her job, seemed secondary to what she would do later. Her arrival was charged with a sense of anticipation and curiosity: Here was the out-of-state expert recruited to fix the Seattle Public Schools. Could she fix budget problems, improve the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) scores and diversify the schools? Did she really have the solutions others didn't?

School officials greeted the new superintendent, many meeting her for the first time. The outgoing principal Marni Campbell spoke briefly about Eckstein's renowned music program. Goodloe-Johnson nodded and listened, staying true to her recently announced "100 Days of Listening and Learning" plan-to meet teachers and administrators on the front line and absorb what they already knew. Over the course of the next year, she will visit every school in the district.

"My goal is to find out what's in place," she said. "What people see as concerns, what people see as celebrations, and what challenges have been. We need to evaluate where we are and where we need to go."

Forty-nine-year-old Goodloe-Johnson, married with one daughter, came to Seattle after four years as the Superintendent of Charleston County in South Carolina. Before her days as a superintendent, she was a high school special education teacher, a soccer and softball coach, and a high school principal, moving from Nebraska to Colorado to Texas.

During her time in Charleston, Goodloe-Johnson was credited with standardizing a countywide curriculum, improving SAT scores, installing a system of checks and balances to fix budget problems, and closing the achievement gap between white and black students. She was the first African-American and the first woman to ever head the Charleston County School District. Her contract, originally slated to end in September of 2008, was extended to 2009, assuming she would not move to Seattle.

This August, she takes over for Raj Manhas, who announced his resignation as the Seattle Public Schools' Superintendent last fall. She lists lack of a district-wide curriculum or an assessment system, problem areas she feels suited to improve, as reasons she decided to take the job. Like Charleson, Seattle has an achievement gap. Both are urban districts with similar student population sizes (Charleston: 43,000; Seattle: 46,000). So Seattle and its district issues are familiar beasts to the doctor. In fact, the biggest difference between the two districts might be the pay (Charleston: $175,000; Seattle: $250,000).

Challenges Ahead
Establishing a strong rapport with the School Board will be the first of many objectives for Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. "She won't know until November [after the School Board elections] how that's going to work out," said Barbara Schaad-Lamphere, Senior Fellow at Washington Appleseed, a nonprofit organization that is sponsoring discussions about the Seattle School District leadership and governance this summer. "But absolutely if you're a superintendent you need to be able to count on your school board to work together as a team."
Goodloe-Johnson was hired unanimously by the current board, but only three of those constituents are guaranteed to be members after November. In order to implement her vision for change, she will need a supportive board that cooperates with her in making district policy.

So far, she has made the right impression. School Board President Cheryl Chow remembers when Goodloe-Johnson came to Seattle for an interview. "Our staff, our teachers, our principals were all very hungry to have an academic leader," she said. "We were just wowed."

Chow's goals for the Board and new superintendent include designing a better math curriculum and developing stronger partnerships with colleges in the area.

"All the school districts are struggling with the math. It's not Seattle-specific," said Chow, referring to Washington students' low math scores on the WASL tests. Controversy regarding the statewide test will be a likely challenge for Goodloe-Johnson in the coming years. Since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001, states have used a test to track students' improvement every year; it's the only way to receive federal funding.

But according to Chow, the current WASL isn't an appropriate measure of performance. "That was supposed to be a test where districts could take a snapshot to see how the kids were doing," she said. "Because of that national push, our state, just like other states, has tied in a test, one test, to whether a kid graduates with a diploma or not. That's not what the test was set up to do."

"The WASL tests a much deeper, richer problem-solving approach to math," said Carla Santorno, who points to its complexities as part of the reason students struggle to score well. "It's not just computation. It's not just measuring. It's problem solving."

But Molly O'Connor, assessment communications manager for office of superintendent of public instruction, said a passing score on the math WASL is roughly the equivalent of a 470 on the math SAT and does not require any knowledge of algebra 2, trigonometry, pre-calculus or calculus; a competent 10th grader is supposed to be capable of passing the test.

Both Chow and Santoro believe that the school district also face a problem in finding qualified candidates willing to become public school teachers for math and science. This, too, might contribute to the significantly lower WASL test scores in math and science.

Goodloe-Johnson also becomes the leader of the Seattle Public Schools just after it has received weeks of public attention for the U.S. Supreme Court's decision against a Student Assignment Plan used before 2001. Justice Anthony Kennedy's position, acknowledging race as one of many factors that could be considered when diversifying the public school population, will guide the superintendent as she tries to develop a new plan that fairly addresses race, socioeconomics and proximity to the school. In a sense, it's an historic opportunity to map out a new kind of plan for social change in a way no public school district has before.

With substantial challenges ahead, Goodloe-Johnson is content with her "100 Days of Listening and Learning" plan for now. She's still collecting data. Her office has hired an accountant from the Boston Public Schools to audit the Finances and Communications departments in the hopes of finding inefficiencies-gaps where money and resources can be shifted toward the classroom.

"It's just to look at what's currently in place. To see if there are any deficits that haven't been identified," she said. In February, the Superintendent will announce a more specific list of goals and objectives based on her research. In the meantime, she will continue to visit schools, talk with school officials and listen to what Seattle veterans have to say about the system currently in place.

Inside an Eckstein auditorium, Goodloe-Johnson climbed on stage to talk with a band of summer school students. Did they know she played the trumpet? She asked. They politely admitted they didn't. They probably didn't know who she was, or what a superintendent did, but somehow that wasn't the point. Before leaving, she surveyed the class of middle schoolers one last time, as if to remind herself that behind all the budget finagling and policy changes, here was the real reason she had come to Seattle; for the kids.