A week after state school Supt. Joseph Spagnolo abruptly announced he would resign next month, a state Democratic senator Monday accused the Republican-dominated State Board of Education of rushing to name a successor before the gubernatorial election.
Sen. Vince Demuzio of Carlinville, who is a member of the Education Committee, said that the superintendent’s job is too important to be handed to someone without the input of the new governor.
“This is the biggest hoax in Illinois history,” Demuzio said. “This smacks of politics at its worst.”
But Kim Knauer, who is part of a four-member team appointed by the board to help during the transition period, said that a new superintendent needs to be appointed soon to maintain momentum on several new and critical initiatives this fall. In addition, she said, a budget for fiscal 2000 will have to be submitted to the governor in December.
Besides, “we know we don’t live in a vacuum,” Knauer said, which is why, she said, the team will be consulting with the staffs of the two gubernatorial contenders, Secretary of State George Ryan and U.S. Rep. Glenn Poshard (D-Ill.).
In addition to setting Oct. 22 as a goal for naming a new superintendent, the board last week appointed Robert Mandeville the interim head. Mandeville, who will take over Sept. 1, was brought in last year to ride herd over the day-to-day activities of the state agency after a scathing audit critical of the board’s management.
Several highly-praised initiatives by Spagnolo will be implemented during the next school year. They include more rigorous academic standards for the state’s 2 million students in public elementary and high schools and tests in February to assess for the first time how well students are meeting those standards.
If the board were to wait until after the election, Knauer said, the new governor’s plate would be so full with other appointments and policy-making decisions that his attention might not turn to a new superintendent until March.
If a top-quality candidate is not identified by Oct. 22, the deadline will be extended, she said.
According to the state constitution, no more than five of the nine board members can belong to one party. The current board has five Republicans although none of the members have publicly identified themselves with either party, board spokesman Tom Hernandez said.
However, the governor is required to privately inquire how a potential member has voted to ensure that the board has the right ratio, Knauer said.
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Meanwhile, board members have appointed leaders to head at least a dozen focus groups as a way to get input from parents, teachers, employers and others on what they consider important qualities in a superintendent.
The heads of the focus groups will have to submit summaries of their discussions in time for the board’s three-day retreat in Oak Brook in August devoted to the selection of a new superintendent, said board member Connie Rogers of Buffalo Grove, who is head of the search committee.
Rogers, a board member of Kildeer-Countryside Elementary School District 96 for 20 years before her appointment to the state board in 1997, has named four focus group leaders.
Heading those are Ellyn Zimmerman, assistant superintendent of the Round Lake School District 116; Mark Van Clay, superintendent of Lake Bluff School District 65: Cindy Wood, a staff member of the Illinois Association of School Boards; and David Willard, retired superintendent of Kildeer-Countryside District 96.
On Wednesday, those leaders will meet with Rogers to discuss the direction of the focus groups.