Pr. George's Board Picks New Leader For Schools
Chief From California Has Record of Raising Minority Test Scores

By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 17, 2006

The leader of a small Southern California school district emerged yesterday as the next Prince George's County schools chief, poised to take over a system troubled in recent years by leadership instability and stubborn student achievement gaps.

Without public dissent, the county school board chose Superintendent John E. Deasy of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District over administrators from Kansas and New York with greater experience in large urban systems. Deasy would move from a 14,000-student district to one nearly 10 times as large.

Board members called Deasy a passionate educator with a record of raising minority performance that they believe he can replicate on a wider stage.

Unless the board uncovers information that would disqualify Deasy or fails to agree to terms with him on a contract, the 45-year-old educator is scheduled to start in Prince George's on May 1.

Deasy (pronounced DAY-see) would be the fifth Prince George's school leader in the past decade. Two recent chiefs were magnets for controversy. Iris T. Metts feuded with her board, and Andre J. Hornsby quit in the spring amid an ethics probe.

Deasy offered himself as a leader free of ethical taint, challenging anyone to scour his record. He also pledged to close the black-white achievement gap that shadows schools in Prince George's and elsewhere in the country.

"This is a fulcrum issue in education," Deasy said in a telephone interview from Santa Monica. He said he was humbled. "I fully recognize there's a huge job ahead."

In Prince George's, where three-quarters of public school children are black, white third-graders have been three times more likely than black students to score at advanced levels on state reading tests. Conversely, black third-graders have been nearly twice as likely as their white counterparts to fail those tests.

Deasy, who is white, edged two African American finalists. He addressed race directly in a series of public and private meetings Monday in Upper Marlboro. At one point, Deasy asked interim schools chief Howard A. Burnett, who is black, whether his skin color would hinder his ability to lead.

"I told him," Burnett recalled, "that in truth I believe people just want to know that you care about what's best for their children." Deasy would be the first white leader of the county's schools since the departure of Edward M. Felegy in 1995.

"People want stability and the best candidate -- black, white or purple," school board Chairman Beatrice P. Tignor (Upper Marlboro) said.

Lifting the achievement of black students and a fast-growing Latino student population is one of many challenges facing the next schools chief.

Another is the daunting size of a 199-school system that has more students (133,325) than any in Maryland but Montgomery County. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified is not even among the 500 largest districts in the country.

Deasy has never led or held a senior position in a large urban system. He said he has consulted for the Los Angeles Unified School District, however, and is well versed in urban educational issues. He was chosen last month to participate in an urban superintendents academy sponsored by the Broad Foundation.

Recently, the Santa Monica Mirror newspaper reported on tensions connected to the appearance of racially charged graffiti at Santa Monica High School. More than a third of the system's students are Latino, and about a tenth are black.

Deasy also would face the pent-up frustration of many parents in a suburb east of Washington with rising wealth but chronically uneven public schools.

Prince George's has lifted student achievement at a faster clip over the past three years than its lagging reputation would indicate. Yet by the stark measure of Maryland test scores, the county ranks ahead of only Baltimore academically. More than a third of its schools -- 76 in all -- are rated in need of improvement.

"We have a number of chronically low-performing schools that are going to require immediate attention and action," Deasy said.

Deasy began his career as a biology and chemistry teacher and became superintendent of a small system in Coventry, R.I., in 1996. He has led Santa Monica-Malibu Unified since August 2001 and says he has raised achievement there significantly for Latino and black students, taking two high-poverty schools off a state watch list. He apparently has strong relationships with his school board and teachers union.

Prince George's board members said Deasy was an up-and-comer who had recently turned down offers elsewhere. They settled on him in a late-night meeting Wednesday at the Greenbelt Marriott and approved their choice publicly last night with a unanimous vote in Upper Marlboro. A final vote to hire Deasy is pending.

"There was no division, no opposition," Tignor said. "It was a consensus choice."

"Clearly, he has a passion and an energy for public education," board member Charlene M. Dukes (Glenn Dale) said of Deasy.

Many educators, politicians and community activists who reviewed the three finalists gave Deasy high marks.

"I'm happy, happy, happy," said activist Donna Hathaway Beck of Upper Marlboro, a frequent school system critic who found herself in rare agreement with the board. "The communities that [Deasy] has been in have liked him and wanted him to stay, and that speaks volumes."

The board's public unity stood in contrast to the hiring of Hornsby in 2003. Board member Judy Mickens-Murray (Upper Marlboro) voted against Hornsby. Critics said the school board should have foreseen that he would flame out barely halfway through his contract. The board hopes to avoid that mistake this time.

"This was a 100 percent choice," Mickens-Murray said.

Labor unions also were effusive. "Deasy has a lot of energy," said Carol Kilby, president of the Prince George's County Educators' Association. "He's going to be very, very positive. Unions were 100 percent behind him."

Employee relations are critical this year as teachers and the administration open talks on a new contract. Deasy said he hopes to launch an initiative to retain quality teachers.

First, Deasy must negotiate his own contract. He now makes a base salary of $153,000 a year. Prince George's advertised the position as paying a minimum of $250,000, plus benefits and performance incentives.

Tignor and Dukes plan to travel to Santa Monica soon to interview key players there in a final vetting of Deasy after investigations by, among others, search consultant Ray and Associates Inc. of Iowa.