The Sizemore Scrap

When tough-talking Barbara Sizemore agreed to become the new superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C., in 1973, she made sure that her contract provided for a public hearing before she could be dismissed. She was remarkably foresighted. Two years ago, school board members praised the District's first black woman superintendent as "brilliant," "creative" and "charismatic." Now the board says she is "combative," "volatile" and "hostile," and has voted to fire her. Sizemore's hearing is scheduled to start next week, and it promises to be as tense and noisy as any debate in the capital since Watergate.

Washington has been an uncomfortable city for school superintendents. It has had four of them in the past eight years, a revolving-door record that has generated considerable administrative chaos. In this situation, Sizemore, 47, was a particularly risky choice. While the District has 132,000 pupils (96% black) in 190 public schools and a $186 million budget, her previous administrative experience was running three experimental schools with 3,400 pupils on Chicago's South Side. Sizemore's rhetoric landed her in trouble almost from the start. Among other things, she promised to "raise the anxiety level" in the District and "revolutionize" its schools.

New Lows. Undeniably, she raised the anxiety level. Sizemore talked earnestly about transforming the District's schools into "a model for the nation to educate blacks and the poor." Yet student achievement levels sank to new lows. Although Washington's school system is one of the best funded in the U.S. (last year it spent $1,628 per student), during Sizemore's reign buildings deteriorated and books and supplies frequently were not delivered to classes.

As doubts about Sizemore's performance surfaced, the composition of the board began to change. Since Congress first granted the District some home rule in 1968, the board has served as a political steppingstone; today only two members of the board that hired Sizemore in 1973 remain.

Inevitably, the members began to take sides. Says one Sizemore critic on the board, Raymond Kemp, a white Roman Catholic priest: "She is angry, mad, feverish about the education of blacks. She can describe the education needs of black children to a T. But she is incapable of managing resources." Sizemore herself calls the mismanagement issue a "copout" and says that the board has interfered with her job. "The decisions are made by the board and administered by the board."

Formal Charges. The final straw came in April. Sizemore charged that the city's "white racist" power structure was responsible for the schools' problems. After a series of meetings, which her supporters frequently disrupted, the board filed 17 formal charges against her. It generally maintained that she was incompetent, and noted that she failed to prepare required financial statements and hired 430 more employees than had been authorized. Sizemore denied the charges in a 113-page report.

Three of the board's seven blacks and all four of the whites then voted to dismiss Sizemore. When it became clear that she would not quit, the board voted last week to offer her two one-year consulting contracts totaling $50,000 if she would leave quietly and drop the remaining 14 months of her $41,700-a-year contract. At week's end, Sizemore was considering the offer.

Meanwhile, the school system is in suspended animation: administrative jobs are vacant, a teachers' contract remains to be negotiated, next year's budget has not yet been sent to Congress, and now a new superintendent evidently must be hired. Says School Budget Director Ed Winner: "If this board found Jesus Christ under a bushel basket, he would have trouble here next year."

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