The city school board last night formally chose Mark Roosevelt, the former director of an education watchdog group and a former Massachusetts legislator, as the district's next superintendent.

Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Pittsburgh school board member Alex Matthews, right, who abstained on the choice of Mark Roosevelt as Pittsburgh public schools superintendent, and Dwight Laufman, executive director of the Pittsburgh-Mt. Oliver Intermediate Unit, listen to last night's debate. Behind them are Gail Williams, left, of Point Breeze, who is president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, and Lillian Allen, from Oakland. Click photo for larger image. Previous coverage Blacks on city school board balk at candidate (7/27/05) Status quo not enough for school superintendent pick (7/26/05) City school superintendent picked (7/25/05)

Despite a split vote of 6-2, school board President William Isler said he hopes his colleagues eventually will unite behind the new school chief.

"A new superintendent signals a new day for this district," Isler said. "My hope is that the board will set aside its differences and embrace this new superintendent."

Board members Mark Brentley and Randall Taylor voted against Roosevelt's appointment. Board member Alex Matthews abstained. All three, the only blacks on the board, boycotted the process at various points during more than a half-dozen meetings held to interview the candidates and work on selecting the new superintendent.

Roosevelt, 49, served in the Massachusetts Legislature from 1986 to 1994, during which he served four years as House chairman of the Joint Committee on Education. He co-authored that state's landmark education reform law, which strengthened high school graduation requirements, established curriculums for key subjects and required schools to test students in essential subjects and report the results to the public.

Roosevelt has a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard College and a law degree from Harvard Law School. He has never worked as a superintendent or held a teaching position, but he did complete a 10-month training program in 2003 for urban superintendents run by the Broad Foundation in Los Angeles.

Mark Roosevelt

He does not, however, possess the Pennsylvania letter of eligibility required of all superintendents in the state, according to state education officials.

Some nontraditional Pennsylvania superintendents, such as Paul Vallas, CEO of the School District of Philadelphia, have been granted state waivers to that rule. Board members plan to apply for the waiver for Roosevelt. The state secretary of education must decide within 60 days.

Last night, as in recent closed-door meetings, board members who ultimately voted against Roosevelt criticized the lack of public input in the selection process and questioned his qualifications.

"I think the learning curve for a nontraditional at this crucial time, with the critical issues we have to overcome, is too great," Taylor said.

Taylor and Matthews tried but failed to delay the vote so the public could weigh in on Roosevelt's selection.

Parent Justin Laing, whose children will attend Miller African Centered Academy and Frick International Studies Academy this fall, said parents and other members of the public should have had a chance to see the superintendent candidates' credentials and perhaps even meet them before a decision was made last night.

"My issue with Pittsburgh Public Schools is always the exact same one -- they use a process that isn't designed around parents, it's designed around the administration," he said. "This is not a system that's designed for nonbureaucratic professionals to engage with."

Desiree Deasy, several of whose children attend Minadeo Elementary, said she was "cautiously optimistic." Though apprehensive that Roosevelt doesn't have hands-on experience teaching or leading a school district, she's hoping he'll bring new ideas and new insights to city schools.

	Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Pittsburgh School Board President William Isler listens as board members talk about Mark Roosevelt, who was approved by a 6-2 vote as the new Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent during last night's school board meeting. Click photo for larger image.

"I'd like to feel more of a community spirit, that people are working together for their school, more community feelings that everybody cares about what's happening in their school," she said.

Yesterday, several outside observers, much like Roosevelt's supporters on the board, said that a nontraditional superintendent not only can succeed, but might also be just the thing to overhaul Pittsburgh schools before their quality begins to erode.

Roosevelt's lack of experience as a superintendent is a plus, said Victor Papale, director of A+ Schools, a successor to the Mayor's Commission on Public Education.

"The education field does a very good job of preparing people to function within the system," he said. "What it appears to me that it does not do a good job of, is preparing people to change the system."

Some building principals will be concerned about Roosevelt's background, but they should work with him, as they should with anyone the board chooses, said Richard Sternberg, president of the Pittsburgh Administrators Association.

He said he hopes Roosevelt will want to work with building principals and other administrators as well.

Maxwell King, president of the Heinz Endowments, said Roosevelt seems to have experience that is relevant to the challenges in Pittsburgh.

"He might be a little short on things like management experience in a big, complicated system but he seems to have a lot of the other requirements," King said.

Esther Bush, president of the Urban League of Pittsburgh, said that everything she has heard about Roosevelt -- including information she received from the CEOs of Urban League chapters in Springfield, Mass., and Boston -- has been "stellar."

"I'm very pleased to hear that he has an excellent reputation as someone who's a big thinker, someone who thinks outside of the box, and his relationship with African-Americans seems to be solid," she said.