Done deal: Huberman to replace Duncan at CPS
(This is Saturday's and Sunday's updated post bumped to today with the latest info and a new head. This way we keep the thoughtful comments in one place.)
So now Crain's, the Sun-Times and the Tribune are all reporting: It's a done deal. Daley has found his schools superintendent in Huberman -- the same guy he's turned to before to take other tough jobs in monolithic city organizations.
Over the last three-plus days since this post first went up, you folks have made some thoughtful comments on this subject, so there's not much more new for me to say. Let me just recap some of your salient points.
- Ron was getting some good stuff done in the 21 months he led the CTA. I don't like that he can't stay and complete the job. It causes problems when you don't have continuity. It would have been good to see him finish big his initiatives, such as improvements in rider communications and performance management.
- Starting over again at the CTA after only two years is a step backward for Chicago.
- Ron once described the CTA as the most difficult job he'd had to date, even harder than working as Daley's Chief of Staff. Wait til he sees the mess that is CPS.
- That sucks. It really shows how Daley prioritizes the CTA. A holding pen for rising stars like Huberman, or a dumping ground for falling ones, like Kruesi.
The Sun-Times story notes that there will be a huge power vacuum at the top of CTA management with Huberman's departure, and CTA Board President Carole Brown's attempts to get a job in Barack's administration.
Good God, y'all.
From Saturday (Jan. 24) and Sunday (Jan. 25) posts:
UPDATE: Daley himself confirms that he has talked about the superintentent job with Huberman.
Mayor Daley is considering naming CTA President Ron Huberman as the new Chicago Public Schools superintendent, according to Chicago Tribune sources. Ron has no comment.
The schools top job opened up when President Barack Obama named Arne Duncan his Education Secretary. While Duncan once was criticized for not having a rich enough schools background (since he was never a teacher), he certainly had more school experience than Huberman does.
Duncan's educational background (per MK's request, from Wikipedia):
Duncan has extensive experience in educational policy and management, but has not been a teacher. In 1992, Duncan became director of the Ariel Education Initiative, a program to enhance educational opportunities for children on Chicago's South Side that was started by John W. Rogers, Jr., and in 1998 he joined the Chicago Public Schools. He became Deputy Chief of Staff for former Schools CEO Paul Vallas in 1999. In 1996, along with Rogers, he was part of a network that funded and supported Ariel Community Academy.
Ron has no educational experience.
While I don't necessarily think the CTA president must have transit experience like some around here do, I do believe schools management experience is crucial for a schools superintendent.
Daley reportedly has considered 150 folks for the job. We'll just have to see who gets the nod -- reportedly to come next week.
I never grew up here in Chicago. I just moved here 6 months ago, and let me tell you, a lot of stuff just doesn't make sense in this City.
I hear a lot of discontent on the forum and other forums, but why is no one complaining? The parents of chicago should be out there striking for their sons/daughter's future.
You can say, well, Ron did a good job so he might do a good job at CPS, but if he was doing a good job at CTA, keep him here! I'm sure you could have tapped someone else for the CPS job.
I truly believe that Chicago is incestuous and just hires the same people and plays musical chairs with them.
I'm totally disgusted by the incompetence of the administration and how the citizens just play along like zombies.
Posted by: Maxwell | January 27, 2009 at 10:05 AM
>>>
I think JP's right. To Huberman's credit, he's an administrator, adept at moving things around to get things done.
<<<
Close. He's a PR guy who's good at making things look good.
He absolutely needs to move to CPS, or anyplace else, quickly before the beutiful facade he's built at CTA falls apart.
Mark my words, he won't spend more than two years at CPS, but will build a beautiful facade there, too. Meanwhile, the fake stucco will start falling off the CTA's image, and the next guy to run CTA will get the blame.
Posted by: Rusty | January 27, 2009 at 10:12 AM
Will school closings be called "service enhancements" as when the Blue Line to 54th was eliminated or buses rerouted leaving some stranded?
Posted by: Martha | January 27, 2009 at 10:17 AM
1. Falcone: That's exactly why Andolino would get the CTA job, she's connected!
Daley always buys them off!
2. I've been riding the CTA since October of 1949. I was 4 days old then & have ridden it ever since, usually on a daily basis.
Kreusi was, is & will forever be total garbage!
He allowed the CTA, especially the L to fall into massive disrepair! He is solely responsible for the stupid, shortsighted decision not to straighten out the tracks at Diversey, to not get the money & then build the northbound flyover for the Brown Line at Clark Junction. It's his people that badly designed the rebuilt Brown Line stations! Sedgwick is the worst example of this, since there was plenty of room to build a single platform island station there & simply move the trains to the unused outer tracks. A single platform would have cost less to build & would save an enormous amount of operating funds over its lifespan, which will be about 100 years! Only one elevator would have been necessary & no property would have had to been purchased through eminent domain.
He wasn't the first to make incompetent decisions at the CTA, that nut & crook Belcaster is the one that made the loony decision to buy non-air conditioned buses & remove the A/C from the rest of the buses.
Posted by: Unindicted Co-Conspirator | January 27, 2009 at 10:36 AM
I'm having trouble visualizing how the flyover would work at Belmont. Are there any archived plans? I guess it could be like the Orange Line flyover, but is the Belmont area really a good place to put that kind of thing? Plus I frankly find the Orange Line flyover a little frightening.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | January 27, 2009 at 10:51 AM
So, the most heart breaking part of this is that there will be no more "Coffee with Ron".
Maxwell will be crushed...
KevinB
Posted by: KevinB | January 27, 2009 at 11:33 AM
KevinB,
You're right, I will. Ron is my favorite.
Ron, I hope you're reading this, stay at the CTA, every time I hop on the blue line I think of you.
Posted by: Maxwell | January 27, 2009 at 11:55 AM
Ya know, I was just thinking. I have two masters degrees in education. I believe I should be in consideration for CTA President.
Posted by: Martha | January 27, 2009 at 11:58 AM
Simple:
You don't think that the things exposed in the NTSB report on the subway derailment, accepting buses even though they were defective, or the campaign to raise only the suburban portion of the RTA tax had anything to do with it? Sort of like those saying that Blago should be given a pass because he cares for children and gave seniors free rides.
As far as slow zone mileage, it sure appears it was worse in 2007. All Frank claimed was that he didn't have the money to fix it. Ron apparently found some, at least for the O'Hare segment of the Blue Line.
Posted by: jack | January 27, 2009 at 12:20 PM
Martha:
I'll support you. Can I have a 200K a year job doing your powerpoint presentations?
KevinB
Posted by: KevinB | January 27, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Ron doesn't need the Police pension, he pushed throguh an ordinance at CTA where he, and others, were able to buy 5 years for the CTA Executive Pension (didn't Frank SInatra, Jr. play in the executive game in the Sopranos). So he has a pension. Has H made some improvements at CTA, yes. Blue Line slow zones have been improved but that is because monies were re-allocated from other projects (station repair, etc.) to pay for slow zone elimination. Now a new RE manager (or Alliance manager, whatever fancy name they are using) is being hired when the $800,000 RE outsourcing was supposed to be "revenue neutral". It will be interesting to see how many of the 30 or so Ronnettes will go to CPS to bring them into the world of Performance Measures.
Posted by: Jim | January 27, 2009 at 12:32 PM
No dice, KevinB. I do my own PowerPoints.
I may appoint you to monitor the Red Line, glass block platform inset safety and #22/#36 on-time performance. Salary will be comensurate with the number of nice things you can say about all of the above.
Posted by: Martha | January 27, 2009 at 01:02 PM
Adam: The flyover was first seriously proposed about 20 years ago. I'm sure there are plans for it somewhere.
It would have worked by having a switch far enough past the north end of the Belmont platform on track 4 so an additional switch could be placed to allow trains from track 3 to crossover to 4 & then it would be just like the one at 17th & State/Wabash. The flyover would be track 5 I guess.
It would have caused the demolition of that building with the ads on its south side between the Ravenswood & NSML tracks & maybe a few others.
Posted by: Unindicted Co-Conspirator | January 27, 2009 at 01:04 PM
Well, CPS is probably, in the end, more important than the CTA. The mess that the CPS has become is probably the largest cause of problems for the city of Chicago (gangs, welfare, homelessness, general malaise among our youth).
If Ron can help the CPS, this is a good move.
Posted by: Brian | January 27, 2009 at 02:22 PM
Martha,
There was no service elimanated to 54th street. They simply rerouted the service they had to improve the commutes of the overwhelming majority of CTA riders in the area. For more details about why it the pink-blue line changes were a huge improvement, please see this post: http://chicagoist.com/2008/12/08/new_green_line_station_coming.php#comment-1536257
By the way, the changes were implemented during Kruesi's tenure, not Huberman's. Huberman made a few modifications to finish the job. There are positives and negatives about everything. It is unfoutunate that it seems almost impossible to make any postive changes to the CTA because people will start complaining about the negatives. This happens even if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks around 10 to 1. We saw a couple weeks ago when I made a simple suggestion of how to improve the bus routes on the north side that people starting screaming about the small drawbacks to this plan. It is very difficult to get anything done with an environment like this.
Posted by: MK | January 27, 2009 at 02:42 PM
I will be appointing MK my chief of staff to go over the details and make sure I have everything correct, even when I'm being sarcastic.
Posted by: Martha | January 27, 2009 at 02:49 PM
Since Hubermann has departed does this mean
that us Chicago Card users will get the two
dollar bonus back and the fifty cents extra
to ride the trains will be recinded ?
Posted by: WhyCryNow | January 27, 2009 at 04:41 PM
WhyCryNow: Certainly hope not. That's a great gift Huberman's leaving behind for his successor: a growing revenue stream from a bunch of folks finally paying their share.
Posted by: JMan | January 27, 2009 at 07:13 PM
[I will be appointing MK my chief of staff to go over the details and make sure I have everything correct, even when I'm being sarcastic.]
Damn, that's the job I wanted, ESPECIALLY when you're being sarcastic. Counter-sarcasm is my greatest strength.
Instead I'll settle for being a train operator on the Red Line. I look forward to waiting at Belmont and Fullerton for the next Brown Line every time. Plus I've always wanted to go around the balloon loop at Howard.
Posted by: strannix | January 27, 2009 at 09:54 PM
I have reconsidered, strannix, I will appoint you Chief of Staff and move MK to the newly created position of Chief Protocol and Screed Officer. If you took a job as a Red Line train operator, you would be reporting to KevinB since I've appointed him to be in charge of the Red Line. Are you sure you want that kind of pressure?
I was planning on appointing the Brothers O'Neil to be in charge of communications, but, alas, I learn from today's post that I'm not really qualified to run the CTA despite my distinguished background in education. Not even the fact that I've taken the bus to work every day for the last 18 months seems to bolster my candidacy. Damn, I coulda been a contenda!
Posted by: Martha | January 28, 2009 at 09:17 AM
[If you took a job as a Red Line train operator, you would be reporting to KevinB since I've appointed him to be in charge of the Red Line. Are you sure you want that kind of pressure?]
Hadn't considered that, but I don't think it would be that big of a problem. As long as I went full speed between Grand and Lake, I'd be in the clear.
Posted by: strannix | January 28, 2009 at 09:51 AM