Ten O'Clock News

[Laval Wilson] 'I'm here to try to convince the Boston school community that Lamar Wilson is the best candidate for the job.' [Hope Kelly] 'He convinced them then back in July of '85 when he arrived with little charisma but plenty of charts.' [Laval Wilson] 'I believe that my planning skills are excellent.' [Hope Kelly] 'That was the sort of thing he stressed. Planning skills- not people skills- and certainly not passion. He was cool under questioning, self confident, and stubborn.' [Laval Wilson] 'I classify myself as a school superintendent.' [Reporter] 'But do you feel as though you're basically a conservative?' [Laval Wilson] 'I classify myself as a school superintendent.' [Hope Kelly] 'It's classic Wilson. He never indulged in rhetoric, nor in any reflections on race.' [Laval Wilson] 'I happen to be black. My profession is school educator and school superintendent.' [Hope Kelly] 'That's when he was in Rochester. Before that it was Berkeley. Now he was aiming for Boston.'

[Member 1] 'Dr. Toomy.' [Member 2] 'Mr. OBryant?' [OBryant] 'Dr. Wilson.' [Member 2] 'Mr. O'Reilly?' [O'Reilly] 'Dr. Wilson.' [Hope Kelly] 'The vote was 9 to 4 in his favor. So he became Boston's first black superintendent. September, '85 he started the task of salvaging a system full of poverty and patronage and starving for pride.' [Laval Wilson] 'Twenty point one percent of last year's first graders did not pass first grade.' [Hope Kelly] 'His challenge was enormous. No one would deny him that. Four months on the job and a bus strike paralyzed the system. He had angry drivers to contend with. A few months later, it was students and parents enraged at his plan to close a few schools. No, he never had smooth sailing, but he wasn't great at soothing either. He threatened to resign over the school closing issue and the next year he actively pursued a job offer from New York, hardly a show of loyalty to the hometown folks paying his nearly $100,000 salary a year. It became a question of perception versus performance.

[Laval Wilson] 'If the reading scores were not going up. and the math scores weren't going up, and the dropout rate on an annual basis continuing to go up high, then we'd say we're not making progress.' [Hope Kelly] 'In fact we are. However slowly, achievement scores are inching upward. Easy to forget since they have so far to go, and dropout rates have fallen to their lowest level in 11 years, still dismal but dropping. [Committee Member] 'Dr. Wilson inherited not Noah's Ark. He inherited the Titanic. And if he's been able to stop the sinking, that alone warrants him having his contract renewed.' [Hope Kelly] 'This past spring as his tenure was hanging by a thread, Wilson survived, but just by one vote. It was hardly a ringing endorsement. What Wilson wanted last spring was a four year contract. What he got was more like a contingency plan, about as close to a no confidence vote as you can get. But then a couple of weeks later the joke was back on the committee when Mayor Flynn

suggested abolishing them.' [Mayor Flynn] 'What this is, is a system, a system that completely fails the school children and the parents of the city of Boston.' [Hope Kelly] 'Flynn wanted to do away with the elected committee altogether and appoint his own instead. It was a stinging insult and also a measure of how divisive and political the school solution has become. Today the Mayor was cautious. He took no questions about Wilson in person. He just issued a printed statement instead, a few sentences in black and white for a situation that, like it or not, has strong overtones of color.' [Mayor Flynn] 'I think you have to look at issues and not at the specific color of the person's skin.' [Hope Kelly] 'It may never have been his issue, but it is undeniably an issue now that an all white majority has voted to remove a black Superintendent from the system where 75 percent of the students are children of color. For the 10 O'Clock News, I'm hope Kelly.'