[{"text": "'Hacksaw' and 'Bonecrusher' are the sort of nicknames normally associated with linebackers and heavyweight contenders."}, {"text": "Who'd have thought that the next group of tough guys carrying around reputations like that would be school superintendents?"}, {"text": "Chicago's new school chief is the hard-nosed Ted Kimbrough."}, {"text": "At his old job in Compton, Calif., he took a bitter teachers' strike and nearly came to blows with a school-board member."}, {"text": "At his first Chicago press conference, he berated the reporters."}, {"text": "In New York City, the new Chancellor, Joseph Fernandez, has landed like a 16-inch shell in the middle of a system that has been impervious to serious reform."}, {"text": "Both men fit the mood of the times -- the mood being one of a public fed up with officials' rationalizations for why their schools don't work."}, {"text": "Former Patterson, N.J., principal Joe Clark was no doubt the general public's first experience with this new breed of no-nonsense administrator."}, {"text": "The subject of the movie 'Lean on Me,' Mr. Clark controlled his school with a bullhorn and a baseball bat."}, {"text": "He may have gone overboard in his pursuit of good discipline, but isn't it interesting that some of the country's biggest, most troubled school districts are choosing new chiefs from the same gravel-chewing mold?"}, {"text": "Elena Scambio, the woman assigned to run the Jersey City school system that was taken over by the state, says her top priority will be to 'cut through the dead hand of bureaucracy.'"}, {"text": "Mr. Fernandez doesn't take control in New York until January, but already he's roiling the waters."}, {"text": "He's attacked the concept of 'building tenure,' one of the most disgraceful institutions in American public schools."}, {"text": "It means it is virtually impossible to fire or even transfer incompetent principals."}, {"text": "Once they are in the building, they stay."}, {"text": "One South Bronx principal kept his job for 16 years, despite a serious drinking problem and rarely showing up for work."}, {"text": "He was finally given leave when he was arrested for allegedly buying crack."}, {"text": "Naturally, the principals' union loves building tenure, and tenure has withstood previous challenge."}, {"text": "We suggest that Mr. Fernandez find an incompetent principal, toss him out of the building and let the forces of the status quo explain to the parents whatever it is they're defending."}, {"text": "In his old job, as Dade County chief, Mr. Fernandez forced out 92 teachers and reshuffled 48 principals."}, {"text": "He cut the dropout rate by 5.5%."}, {"text": "But the no-more-nonsense superintendents are going to have to be judicious as well; incompetent principals and administrators should go, but the good ones ought to be left alone."}, {"text": "The situation will be especially delicate for Mr. Kimbrough."}, {"text": "He takes over a school system in the midst of radical reform."}, {"text": "Chicagoans have just elected 540 neophyte school boards, one for each school."}, {"text": "This of course led to disaster in New York City."}, {"text": "Getting a community of parents to care again about its schools is essential, but in Chicago the new boards will make mistakes and Mr. Kimbrough will have to identify them."}, {"text": "The rise of superintendents such as Joseph Fernandez and Ted Kimbrough suggests plainly the process of disintegration in many school systems."}, {"text": "The schools' central mission, educating children, became subsumed by the competing interests of bureaucrats, politicians and unions."}, {"text": "The classroom itself operated on the periphery of this awful system, discipline collapsed, and kids stopped learning."}, {"text": "Mr. Chips was a nice fellow, and maybe some day he'll return."}, {"text": "Until then, it's clear that some of the people who've been keeping big-city schools down are going to be dealing with the Terminator."}]