Terry Grier isn't here anymore, so no more thinking outside the box

Shame on the teachers union for opposing education reform. We need board candidates who aren't in anyone's pocket.

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Schools Undo Another Grier Change
Voice of San Diego
Emily Alpert
April 13, 2010

Last week I reported that San Diego Unified is planning to reverse changes to its central offices that were made by former Superintendent Terry Grier, returning to a system that looks a lot like what it had before.

Now there's another sign the era of Grier is over in San Diego Unified: The school district will no longer be using a controversial interview tool that Grier introduced to choose principals.

Grier had touted the Haberman interviews as a way to measure would-be-principals' values. We wrote about it nearly two years ago when Grier introduced it:

The interview is modeled on the teachings of University of Wisconsin Milwaukee professor Martin Haberman, who studies disadvantaged students and the educators who help them best. Principals applying for new jobs were interviewed as well. San Diego Unified signed a $23,000 contract with the Haberman Educational Foundation to train staffers in the interview process, which includes problem-solving scenarios and is meant to reveal the applicants' core values. Two people ask open-ended questions during a tape-recorded interview and score the answers.

No more. The Haberman interviews will no longer be used in San Diego Unified. Jeannie Steeg, executive director of the union that represents principals and other school managers, said her group lodged complaints about the interview method and how it was being used to judge principals...