Cambridge schools chief faces tough contract talks

Alex Bloom

Cambridge Public School District Superintendent Thomas Fowler-Finn could be on his way out as the Cambridge school committee will decide in the coming weeks on renewing the superintendent’s contract. After three years on the job, charges that the superintendent did not produce rapid results, high-handedly dealt with staff, and ignored and intimidated the community are threatening the administrator’s job.

“While the superintendent has been a change-maker, he also is a tyrant,” said Mayor Kenneth Reeves, chairman of the school committee.

The Banner received copies of a number of parent emails to the school committee website telling the committee that Fowler-Finn must go.

“[Fowler-Finn] lies and makes his points using faulty information,” said one anonymous email. “He rules by intimidation. He doesn’t understand the invaluable asset the aides in our classrooms are. Much of what has happened recently that is good has nothing to do with the superintendent.”

Many of the emails were sent anonymously out of intimidation and fear of retribution from Fowler-Finn.

All of this criticism will reach a climax in the coming weeks as the school committee must address the issue of Fowler-Finn’s contract. Fowler-Finn’s current contract was for four years and will expire in August of 2007. The school committee must give notice of intent to renew by August 20. If no notice is given, the contract will automatically extend a year through August 2008. However, if the school committee chooses not to renew the contract, the terms are open to negotiation.

Fowler-Finn chose not to comment about the impending contract situation, instead releasing a statement about the gains the school district has made under his tenure.

“I am delighted with the progress that the school district as a whole has made over the past three years and I look forward to continued success,” said Fowler-Finn. “I think that the [Office of Educational Quality and Accountabilty’s] report is a telling statement that the district as a whole is on the right path.”

The Office of Educational Quality and Accountability (EQA) lauded the school district in May and starting on a coherent path toward achievement, according to Executive Director Dr. Joseph Rappa. The EQA had placed the district on watch in 2002 for lacking vision.

“It was a collection of schools each with their own direction and own sense of purpose and people could go whichever way they wanted,” said Rappa. “What we found on our revisit is there was a common sense of purpose, a clear sense of vision. People knew what was expected of them and they were addressing a series of standards and benchmarks that had been established.”

The seven-member school committee is not impressed with the EQA report. Members are frustrated with the superintendent’s low marks on their annual evaluation for the second year in a row. According to committee member Patty Nolan, Fowler-Finn’s marks in dealing with the community went down again despite directives from last year’s evaluation to raise them. Anonymous reports from CPSD staff also paint Fowler-Finn as an intimidating, uncompromising figure.

“I’ve gotten a lot of feedback that his management style is actually inhibiting the partnerships and collaboration necessary to get to the next level,” said Nolan. “You can be hardnosed and have high standards, but it doesn’t mean you have to be dictatorial.”

The results of the evaluation, according to Reeves, cannot be made public per the superintendent’s contract. Reeves was unhappy with the evaluation process in general, arguing that the highly private evaluation, which the superintendent actually oversaw himself, is “emblematic of what the real problem is.” Reeves berated Fowler-Finn for poor relations with the community and his own staff, and criticized him for the clause banning subcommittees in the superintendent’s contract.

“I think the superintendent was engaged by the school committee during a period of duress,” said Reeves. “The school committee accepted a contract with him that did not allow the school committee to have subcommittees at all. That greatly frustrated the school committee — to not be able to do any work.”

Reeves refused to offer his own input on how the superintendent could correct some of his and the district’s shortcomings.

“The superintendent in my experience does not seek advice so I don’t think I should offer it where it’s not desired,” said Reeves.

Personality is not the only problem and takes a backseat to the bigger problem of what Reeves and Nolan characterized as poor achievement in testing.

The number of students passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test rose from 36 percent in 2002 to 44 percent in 2004. However, those numbers went down two percent in 2005.

Nolan points to tenth grade testing numbers, which have Cambridge up two percent in passing in English and Language Arts (ELA) but down three percent in passing in Mathematics. Nolan questions why Cambridge’s results changed so little while close to 20 Massachusetts school districts improved by five or more percentage points in ELA and more than 30 districts went up by five or more percentage points.

“We have exactly one high school, so every story about a school turning around or getting great results in a year or two is applicable here,” Nolan said.

Nolan argued that a district like Cambridge, which spends an estimated $23,000 per student and has Harvard, MIT and Lesley “in our backyard,” should be performing better.

“I have to ask, ‘Why aren’t we on that list?’” said Nolan. “Especially because I know that none of them have our budget.”

In a district where more than 60 percent of students are from a racial or ethnic minority, the school committee has also called for better results in testing for those subgroups. Reeves mentioned the CPS Student Benchmark reports, which show limited gains in achievement gaps and still have many areas of concern for minority students. Rappa agreed with Reeves on the issue, saying that minority performance was a legitimate concern in the district.

“The mayor was extremely correct in saying that the issue of educational reform has to represent a rising tide of performance in all boats in this environment,” said Rappa.

For his part, Fowler-Finn has produced results in the city’s lone high school, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, which had lost accreditation back in 2002. The graduating class of 2005 had a 44 point increase in combined SAT scores and although there was a drop of 12 percent in the number of students taking AP courses, 87 percent of CRLS seniors graduated, an increase of seven percent.

These results do not surprise Paul Toner, the outgoing president of the Cambridge Teachers Association. Toner “totally disagreed” with Reeves’ charge in a July 1 Boston Globe article that the district is moving backwards.

“I am completely confident that the superintendent is moving us in right direction,” said Toner.

Toner defended Fowler-Finn for having strong opinions about issues because Fowler-Finn has spent the past twenty years as a superintendent in Fort Wayne, Ind. and in Haverhill. Toner acknowledged that the superintendent gets himself into trouble in the district because of his style of management and how it relates to the district as a whole.

“It’s been said that the school district here in Cambridge is ‘a culture of nice’ and for the most part it’s true,” said Toner. “People in this district have difficulty talking in an honest, frank way about an issue. The worst thing that I’ve seen about him is he’s blunt — in some respects blunter than any superintendent I’ve seen. It doesn’t mean he’s not right — it just means that he’s direct.”

The Banner talked to several school administrators who reported no problems with Fowler-Finn.

“I’ve had very positive experiences with the superintendent,” said Barbara Boyle, principal of the Graham & Parks Alternative School. “He’s been a good leader and he’s helped us all work — we’re all working together as a team. We’re headed in the right direction and we should stay the course.”

Mary Eirich, who is in her fifth year as principal of the Baldwin School and 27th year in the Cambridge district, praised Fowler-Finn for the district’s improvements in MCAS testing over the past few years and downplayed the notion that the district should have made faster gains.

“He’s done a lot of good things for the district and I think he’s moving us in the right direction,” said Eirich. “It’s a misperception the public has that if you will it, you can change it overnight. It’s a long course that we have and he’s very focused on getting us where we need to go.”

Rappa echoed Eirich’s sentiments, comparing Fowler-Finn’s job to an oil tanker and mentioning that the school committee needs patience.

“Changing a superintendent is like trying to turn a very large oil tanker,” said Rappa. “It doesn’t turn like a sports car. I think the school committee is right to expect better performance. I would not challenge that at all. And I think they’ll get it.”

City Councilor Michael Sullivan, who served as mayor and chairman of the school committee during Fowler-Finn’s hiring, downplayed the administrator’s poor marks with staff management.

“He arrived in a system that he was an outsider to and needed to shake things up a little bit,” said Sullivan. “He did that and now he needs to build a team and that may require better personal skills.”

“We weren’t looking to hire a cheerleader. We were looking to hire an educational leader and that’s the bill he filled.”

Sullivan noted that Fowler-Finn has made great headway in uniting the district under a common vision, reigning in the budget and initiating block scheduling. Sullivan said parting ways with Fowler-Finn and starting a new hiring process could be very damaging to the school district, especially considering the situation in neighboring Boston.

“The likelihood of hiring someone of Fowler-Finn’s caliber is not very high,” said Sullivan.