Business and community leaders across Tennessee agree that educational improvement is the number one factor in improving Tennessee's economic vibrancy and ability to compete for jobs. In Nashville, the local chamber has gone so far as to state in its recent annual report card on schools that its local system is in need of radical changes. At press time, the state finds itself in a position that, if not unprecedented, is at least unusual—its three largest school districts are without a superintendent. With Knox County, Memphis and Nashville-Davidson County all searching for new leaders, it's a time of great need. But it's also a time of great opportunity. With this in mind, BusinessTN urges Tennessee these three school districts to give full consideration to hiring non-traditional directors to run their systems. We do so with solid business principles in mind.

Some of America's top companies have from time to time reached outside their particular leadership corral to infuse their business model with fresh perspective from a different sector. (Remember IBM's Louis Gerstner, the non-techie CEO from RJR Nabisco who saved the computer company?) The same could be true of running our schools. And the numbers show that the comparisons work. Memphis City Schools has about 200 schools and 16,000 employees. That's more facilities than are managed by Franklin-based Community Health Systems, the nation's largest publicly traded hospital company, and significantly more employees than Chattanooga-based insurance giant Unum. The system's budget is around $800 million, roughly the size of Nashville's Ingram Entertainment, the nation's largest distributor of DVD software. Lastly, school superintendents work for the public, answer to a board and are under pressure to produce positive results, not unlike the CEO of a publicly traded company.

Put aside for a moment the siren-like sales pitches of the same small pool of school superintendent candidates—savvy travelers marked by short tenures, large severance packages and relocation to ever larger markets. Put aside, as well, the anticipated protestations of the teachers' unions, who would fight a non-educator getting such a position lest they be held to the same rigorous standards of performance as those we in the traditional workplace endure. (Non-traditional school superintendent candidates should agree to surround themselves with subordinates possessing relevant educational backgrounds.) Focus instead on the desperate need for Tennessee schools to innovate for the sake of children and business in Tennessee. At the least, the exercise of looking at non-traditional candidates could be instructive to local school boards even if they remain intent on hiring a traditional candidate.

Gov. Phil Bredesen has been pushing hard to get professionals, particularly those in math and science fields, to leave their current jobs and go to work as public school teachers. He's done so to alleviate teacher shortages in key areas, to infuse schools with real world know-how, and even to provide professionals the opportunity to give back to their communities before their careers wind down. The same paradigm would work in hiring the right people to lead our schools. Surely there are more than a few late-career or even retired executives (perhaps even someone from this issue's Power100 list?) willing to apply their leadership and organizational skills to help local schools. Given the 2.5-year average tenure of urban school superintendents these days, even a brief stint would suffice.

Bredesen, a CEO himself who built a publicly traded health care company before entering politics, is careful to say that no single change in public education will ever be a panacea that in and of itself resurrects school performance. Hiring bona fide CEOs as school superintendents could simply be one additional element in righting what's wrong with our schools.

Drew Ruble
Editor