The Replacement: Hinojosa Gets Official Nod From Georgia; Dallas ISD to Name Temp

By Robert Wilonsky Mon., Jun. 6 2011 at 8:12 AM

Dallas Independent School District trustees once more spent most of Friday afternoon and evening rating and debating the five interim superintendent candidates. But, once more, they retreated to exec session and opted to run out the clock till Michael Hinojosa was officially offered the top job in Cobb County, Georgia. That happened last night: It took the Cobb County School District board all of four minutes to give the $265,000-a-year gig (including perks), after which a coterie of parents booed the selection.

Why the hubbub? "All we can find on the Internet from Dallas is very negative," said one parent to the Action News team, which sums up their rumblings thusly: "Critics said they're upset about Hinojosa's record on hiring teachers from Mexico, his handling of the budget crisis in Dallas and his district's low test scores." Oh, well -- he's all yours now. Still, as you'll see on the other side, the official CCSD video from last night's meeting isn't exactly ... fiery, let's say.

Meanwhile, the DISD board will more than likely announce his replacement at the 5 p.m. called board meeting, where it will also accept Hinojosa's letter of resignation. Leslie's drawn the rookie's short straw to attend that meeting, most of which will more than likely take place behind closed doors, at which point Lew Blackburn will leg-wrestle Carla Ranger, winner gets to pick the selection -- Nolan Estes or recently installed district CFO Alan King, who used to a great job temping for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

All of which, for some reason, reminds me of my favorite least-SFW Replacements song.

Watch live streaming video from cobbschools at livestream.com

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Jane Douglas

Let's just hope that he does a better job here than he did in Dallas. How that he is responsible for Cobb County studentshe needs to improve his productivity!!!

Michael MacNaughton

The trustees have failed again. Failed to publicly announce a selection process; failed to create and announce an interim job description; and failed to gather qualified candidates.

When Alan King is selected the trustees will have failed to understand that one person cannot do both the job of superintendent and CFO and do them well.

The trustees have earned a big fat grade of F on this test.

DISD Teacher

On the campuses, we don't need a super. They and their minions just create a bunch of extra, unnecessary stuff for everyone to do.

Principals and teachers run the campuses quite effectively. 99% of campus problems are bc someone at 3700 picked a friend or relative to be principal. Without those overpaid and useless bureaucrats dictating hiring, campuses could do much better.

All we need is Alan to oversee spending.Fire principals at failing schools regardless of who they know.We'd save a whole lot of money.

Bob

Speaking of that band, why is "Color Me Obsessed" not playing through Dallas?

"Teachers in Workshops. Riiiiiight..."

trashtalk

Lordy have mercy! There is a more stupid group of humanoids than those on the board in Dallas.

Let's do the arithmetic. The man who blew up his own budget, allowed pcard thieves to stay in their positions, put his own son at the front of the line for a free ticket to Harvard, hired nothing but corrupt cronies, and has flatlined scores in Dallas now is making HALF A MILLION A year in taxpayer money while teachers are threatened with furloughs and firings.

Vile, corrupt, manipulative POS, but he always lands on his feet while pushing teachers in front of the bus.

DISD Teacher

People like him get away with it bc our own neighbors-- whom we've elected to the school board to protect and serve our children--okay the waste, fraud, cronyism, and nepotism.

Picket individual school board members and all the contractors/consultants/vendors taking our kids' money and this crap will stop.

Can't wait to see the final TAKS report now that TPM is gone.Many gains will be due to the fact that the kids were, in several cases, given the exact same test as kids last year. Tricky questions from last year were used as examples for this year's crop of kids.

Watching South Detroit

Since they are picking from canddates that are current or past DISD administrators, the corruption, mismanagement, waste, nepotism/cronyism and general all around idiocy will just continue.

Teacher in the OC

And still we DISD teachers sit, watching the leg-wrestling and ya-hooing from the sidelines, awaiting news on whether we have a job this fall and, if so, where....good times, mi amigos. Good times.

DISD Teacher

The teachers I've talked to want Alan King to be interim.

But who cares what teachers want, right?

Did you know that teachers cannot serve on the school board?Imagine if the American Medical Association didn't allow doctors to have input.Imagine if the police associations didn't let police officers any leadership positions.

The problem with public education is that it is a Soviet-style top-down paradigm and that paradigm doesn't work anymore. Inevitable corruption-just like in the USSR--has killed it.

Private schools are bottom-up. Kids get a good education, parents are happy, and schools are relatively safe, stable, and even attractive places to learn. Teachers are key in decision-making.

It's not like God Himself has said we have to keep our current, broken model.

Teacher in the OC

Some private schools are bottom-up. Some private schools provide a quality education. Private status is not a magic bullet that ensures quality. Nor, for that matter, is charter status.

DISD Teacher

Charters are definitely top-down.They are public schools run by people picked by the board.They are an additional set of bureaucrats.My eternal question is: If charters are so wonderful, why not run all DISD schools on whichever charter model and save the money currently being given to the charter operators (and I already know the answer to that question).

I don't know of any private schools that are not bottom-up. Parents in private have tremendous influence even if they never choose to exercise it. If every parent decided tomorrow to leave Hockaday bc of something controversial, Hockaday would do an about-face in a heartbeat. That's bottom-up.

DISD couldn't care less what parents or teachers think. They get tax money no matter what.

Heywood U Buzzoff

Wow, the Cobb County school Board does things out in the open, taped, televised, and in front of an audience. Don't they know that you only get a Dallas class school district by doing things behind the scenes, in closed sessions?? I wonder how long Hino will last if he is subjecting to such transparent surroundings??