City schools superintendent schedules news conference; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/6/16

Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; City schools superintendent schedules news conference:

"Anthony Hamlet, the recently hired Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent, will hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon to address apparent discrepancies in his resume related to graduation rates and school performance improvement in the south Florida district where he worked before coming to Pittsburgh.

In an unusual Sunday press release, the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ board of directors said Mr. Hamlet would “provide context to information shared on his resume that has recently come under question in the media.”

A May 29 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found that while his resume stated that two schools in the Palm Beach County school system had “moved from ‘F’ to ‘C’” during his tenure as principal, both schools were already “C” schools before he took over.

The article also noted that federal graduation rates in the district improved by 4 percent during his tenure instead of the 13 percent claimed in his resume. He has said the higher percentage includes those who graduated after an extended summer session...

The Tuesday press conference is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., in the school Administration Building, 341 S. Bellefield Ave., in Oakland."

New resume questions raised about incoming Pittsburgh Schools superintendent; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/3/16

Molly Born and Chris Potter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; New resume questions raised about incoming Pittsburgh Schools superintendent:

"In the wake of new reports questioning figures that the future Pittsburgh Public Schools’ superintendent cited in his resume, the school board president acknowledged that more could have been done to check his claims.

Regina Holley emphasized Friday afternoon that Anthony Hamlet “will do a wonderful job in the district, and the board will work with him to ensure that happens,” saying she valued his experience turning around struggling schools in Palm Beach County, Fla. But she said that in hindsight, “I would have questioned him more thoroughly on some of the numbers.”

A revised version of Mr. Hamlet’s resume, which included additional information in sections reporters had questioned, was sent to the Post-Gazette Friday.

The questions involve graduation figures, school performance ratings and other claims that Mr. Hamlet made in a resume released by the Pittsburgh school district on May 18. Some of the assertions were examined in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article Sunday, and others were questioned in a Palm Beach Post story Friday.

Ms. Holley said that she would have liked to see Brian Perkins, the consultant hired by the school board to guide the superintendent search, “go deeper on vetting that data.” But she added that when the district was drafting its list of priorities for finding a new superintendent — a process that involved public input — “we didn’t make that as an emphasis. ... What we were looking for is, was there a positive experience with challenging children in the district? That’s the goal.”

Mr. Hamlet, 46, began a consulting contract with Pittsburgh Public Schools on Wednesday for “transition and planning activities” through this month. He will start a five-year pact as its top school administrator on July 1 — a day after current superintendent Linda Lane’s contract expires — with a starting salary of $210,000."