Pittsburgh Public Schools former Superintendent Anthony Hamlet resigned in September, following years of controversy over ethics. In seeking his replacement, school board members ought to learn from the sloppy and casual way they hired Mr. Hamlet and ignored his shortcomings.    

Mr. Hamlet’s tenure was tarnished from the start. In 2016, he was found to have “inaccuracies” on his resume. In 2019, he and other administrators took a trip to Cuba during professional development training. That unauthorized jaunt prompted a two-year ethics investigation that found Mr. Hamlet violated the Public Official and Employee Ethics Act on numerous counts regarding travel reimbursements, honorariums, and filing financial documents.

When the ethics report was released in August, Mr. Hamlet defended himself by claiming his violations were unintentional. The director of the state ethics commission and much of the public, rightly, found this shrug of a defense inadequate. Mr. Hamlet resigned.

Now, after several months of interim leadership, school board members are, again, looking for a superintendent. This time, they need to get it right.

Mr. Hamlet’s record, even aside from the ethics concerns, was less than stellar. Making matters worse, he entered a school system with the deck stacked against him. He made some progress in closing the achievement gap between Black and white students, but his critics say it wasn’t nearly enough.

We agree. Not only was it not enough for Pittsburgh students, it wasn’t enough to justify retaining a man who entered into the position under a cloud of suspicion.

When a school superintendent faces questions of plagiarism at the start of his or her tenure, school board members should demand transparency moving forward. In Mr. Hamlet’s case, they did not.

Mr. Hamlet was chosen based on his background in education administration, which his resume overstated. Previous leadership in urban school districts and his commitment to diversity also were cited. Given his stated qualifications, board members may have assumed personal integrity and attention to detail came with them.

If so, they were mistaken, and the school system and its children paid for their error in judgment.  

School board members have not yet picked a firm to lead the search for a new superintendent, but they and whomever they hire must make personal character an essential ingredient in a successful candidate for superintendent. As parents, teachers and administrators continue to wrangle over protocols for COVID-19, and memories of Mr. Hamlet’s tenure begin to fade, Pittsburgh schools need a trustworthy hand at the helm.

First Published: January 17, 2022, 11:00 a.m.