08 John Deasy Had to Quit

John Deasy was an impressive superintendent of the Prince George's County schools when I knew him six years ago.He cared about kids.He had good ideas.He worked very hard.That got him one of the biggest jobs in education, superintendent of the Los Angeles schools in 2011.He made some improvements, including a rise in the level of challenge and achievement in those schools, but he lost touch with his school board—a common occurrence—and had to quit this month.

Education Web sites throb with debate about this.Was Deasy wrong to demand that student test scores be used in teacher assessments? Did the teacher's union have too much influence over who got elected to the board? Is this a happy victory over corporate school reform, given Deasy's ties to the Broad and Gates foundations? Or is it a sad defeat for compassionate reform that focused on kids rather than politics?

Such arguments are useful in our ongoing struggle to improve schools.But I wonder why we aren't debating some of the biggest stains on Deasy's record.He launched a $1.3 billion program to provide every student in the school system with an iPad.So far, that has been a mess.He oversaw a $130 million software program to track student records.As a result, many students have waited weeks for their classes.Why aren't we reformers talking about that?

Two decades ago, Columbus middle school in Union City,N.J., partnered with Bell Atlantic Corp.to fill classrooms with new computers and software.Politicians and reporters gave rave reviews to the technology boost.They said low test scores at the school had soared as a result.President Bill Clinton visited the school to announce a $2 billion program to put computers in all U.S.classrooms.