By Terry Falk
Milwaukee School Board Director
When prospective Milwaukee superintendent Gregory Thornton was asked if he could handle a contentious teachers’ union, he pointed out that Philadelphia principals belong to the Teamsters’ Union, and when they went on strike, they had semis blocking the schools’ front doors.
After being deputy superintendent in Philadelphia, Thornton was appointed superintendent of the Chester Upland school district. Its finances were in shambles, and its student achievement was even worse. In short order, he had that school district turned around and headed in the right direction.
With additional deputy superintendent positions in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Charlotte, North Carolina, Gregory Thornton comes to Milwaukee with the most experience in urban districts of any previous MPS superintendent . Yet supporters of mayoral control called Thornton “untested.” The Milwaukee School Board didn’t ask Thornton if he could jump behind the wheel of a snowplow during a blizzard to keep the schools opened, but we were pretty sure he could do just about everything else.
Nevertheless, the attacks on Thornton just kept coming. The allegation that he had a conflict of interest in awarding a software contract in Philadelphia proved to be unfounded. From his personal bankruptcy, I have concluded not to go into the restaurant business with the man, but I do think he knows a lot about education.
Thornton should be the kind of guy mayoral supporters would embrace. After all, he was second in command in Philly, a city where the school board is half appointed by the mayor and half by Pennsylvania’s governor. His superintendent position in Chester Upland was an appointment from Governor Ed Rendell. And Thornton has been praised by Paul Vallas, former school CEO in Philadelphia, Chicago, and now superintendent of the Recovery School District of Louisiana. None of Vallas’s appointments were from an elected school board.
Frankly, I worried that Thornton was too closely tied to mayoral control. The last thing the Milwaukee School Board wanted to see was their new superintendent standing next to Milwaukee’s mayor before the TV camera saying, “Mr. Mayor, take this school district over.” But the proponents of mayoral control have trashed Thornton so badly that the School Board has little to worry about in that department.
The attacks were most likely designed to place enough heat on Thornton that he would ultimately not take the job leaving the Milwaukee School Board high and dry, without a superintendent, and a school system ripe to be taken over by the mayor.
If anything, attacks on Thornton will probably help him by creating such low expectations that, if he shows even modest success, he will be viewed as a competent superintendent. For that, Gregory Thornton has a lot to be thankful for from the proponents of mayoral control.
