The Prodigal Superintendent Returns, Unfortunately
When I heard that Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Eugene White was looking for another job, I didn’t know whether to crack open a bottle of scotch or just crack up.
There was one part of me that wanted to run outside and do cartwheels just cheering the fact that worst Superintendent in the State of Indiana was heading south, which is ironic because that’s where he has been taking IPS ever since he took over. And then there was another part of me that felt really bad that he was leaving because now some other poor schmucks were going to have to deal with his ability to miseducate their children as well. Yikes.
Could you just imagine the poor parents and teachers who would have to put up with someone who had threatened to break the law because he doesn’t like charter schools? Or someone who has been losing a thousand students on average a year and blaming everyone but himself? Or for that matter someone whose inability to educate children was so horrific that he lost several schools to a state takeover which could have been avoided had he just taken a look in a mirror and did some really tough self-evaluation as opposed to just seeing a guy who could do no wrong?
And you know what the sad part is in all this? I am willing to bet a thousand bucks that the school districts in South Carolina and Alabama knew all this when they made him a finalist for the jobs but that’s not what killed his chances. What probably killed his chances was Eugene’s inability to keep his mouth shut and when he told one school district in a public meeting that he really didn’t want to work there, but the other school district. Really? That’s like telling one woman the only reason you’re with her is because the other won’t take you and she just happens to find out about it. At the end of the day you end getting nothing, literally.
So I guess at the end of the day, the good news is Eugene won’t have the opportunity to be a total failure in another district and miseducate someone else’s children. Instead he can just continue to remain at the helm of the sinking ship known as IPS Schools. Apparently it is a job he does very well because it’s the only one he knows how to do.
