The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has gotten downright gushy over the new Milwaukee superintendent, Gregory Thornton. The newspaper had an energized Thornton on the front page. “A breath of fresh air,” “a firestorm,” were comments the paper parroted from others. Another article followed with the headline “Leadership changes among the reasons for optimism at MPS.”
This is the same paper that called Thornton “untested,” perhaps unethical and maybe incompetent with money just a few months ago.
Many of the negative comments directed at Thornton were probably designed to keep him from taking the job in the first place. I’m not saying that the paper’s reporters had this intention in mind, but they sure got an earful from those wanting the school board to fall flat on its face being left high and dry without a superintendent. I said so much in a letter for Milwaukee Magazine back in March.
The school board has been held in such low regard that many of the movers and shakers didn’t think the board was even capable of hiring a competent superintendent. When Mayor Barrett was asked what his plan was for MPS, he simply stated, “hire a good superintendent,” and nothing more.
In January 2009, the Journal Sentinel’s Alan Borsuk called it “a shallow pool” for superintendents and threw out some local names as a prospective strong superintendent, none of which had a fraction of the experience that Gregory Thornton brings to the table.
So what changed? Why is the local media now so positive about Thornton?
Well, the board hired him. No one wants to be accused of bringing Thornton down without giving him a chance to save the school system. While previously low expectations play in Thornton’s favor, unrealistic high expectations may not be all that helpful.
Doyle and his troops may no longer be in pursuit to take the school system back, but even Moses, after parting the Red Sea, led his people into a stinking desert. It’s not like the Promised Land is over the next hill.
Everyone is looking for instant results. We are going to be wandering around the desert for a while. Moses used that time to create a people and institutions to be prepared for the time when they got to the Promised Land. Moses didn’t save the Israelites; they were taught how to save themselves. The main difference is no one is going to give Thornton forty years to do the job.
Meanwhile, back in the boardrooms and newsrooms, they’re already collecting gold to be melted into a golden idol.
