By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
September 26, 2011

When Superintendent Dr. John Covington left the Kansas City, Missouri School District, it created an uproar.

No one expected his departure – not even the school board or district administration.

One school board member likened him to a train engineer who left his post. Some thought he left the KCMSD train to crash.

And with the recent loss of KCMSD’s state accreditation, Covington’s new employer, the State of Michigan, may begin to ask questions. Who is this “train engineer” and why did he leave a district in disarray?

The state hired Covington as the chancellor of an unprecedented program, the Education Achievement Authority (EAA), which will assume control of the state’s lowest performing schools in the bottom five percent. Most of the schools are located in Detroit.

A press release on the Detroit Public Schools website called Covington an “education innovator and creative problem solver with a track record of success in urban school districts.” It further stated, “By the end of Covington’s first year (2010), the district posted the greatest academic student performance gains on the state assessment since the development of the current Missouri test.”

That’s not saying much. At the end of 2010, 79 percent of third graders tested in the below basic to basic skill level in communication arts in the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test. Other grades reflected the same dismal academic achievement. In fifth grade science 28.5 percent of students fell in the below basic category and 53 percent fell in the basic category. Only 14 percent of fifth graders were at a proficient level.

MAP scores for 2011 worsened considerably.

“Dr. Covington brings not just great experience and skill but one of the strongest track records in raising student achievement in the nation,” Roy Roberts, Detroit Public Schools emergency manager and chair of the EAA Executive Committee, said in a press release.

Covington’s employer may begin to question that “track record.”

Residents of Michigan are already questioning Covington’s credentials.

“To have this guy in charge of improving schools is a joke,” one person commented on the Detroit Free Press website. “If he couldn’t get his own district in Kansas City to be accredited he never should have been hired in the first place. What is sad is our tax dollars are paying for this loser to turn around our worst performing schools.”

Part of being a leader is following through and Covington failed to do that for Kansas City schools. With his eye on monetary gains, he left KCMSD in the infancy stages of the Transformation Plan to improve academic achievement.

“There may be no greater opportunity to make a dramatic shift in the lives of many, many deserving young people than through this new system,” he said in a press release.

KCMSD students are deserving, too. Covington may have balanced the district’s budget, but he failed to balance the lack of student academic achievement.

The man with the plan rented in Kansas City and never moved his family here. His roots were shallow, like his follow through. And his abrupt departure played a role in KCMSD losing its state accreditation.

With a $175,000 sign-on bonus in his pocket, Covington is focused on improving the failing schools of Michigan. Or at least staying long enough until a more lucrative offer comes through.