Skip to main contentJust three months ago, WW asked Portland Public Schools Superintendent Vicki Phillips to give herself a grade.
She refused, saying her work "is about continuous improvement; it's about keeping our eyes on outcomes for kids." (See "Hurricane Vicki," WW, Feb. 7, 2007.)
Last week, Phillips' eyes wandered north to Seattle. She announced she was leaving Portland Public Schools less than three years after moving to the district from Pennsylvania.
If she were a high-school student, she'd be labeled a drop-out.
But upon closer examination, Phillips' eyeballs appear to have morphed into giant dollar signs:
She is leaving to be the new education director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a post that paid the previous director $340,242 in 2005. Under Phillips' initial contract with the Portland district, she earned less than 60 percent of that—$203,000.
Before she goes, here's WW's report card on Phillips, covering core subject areas such as math, language arts, history and science, as well as important behavioral categories assessing how the superintendent treated others on the playground. We've come up with these grades following an extensive review of Phillips' permanent file.
Her final grade?
INCOMPLETE.
Report card for Vicki Phillips
Email from Portland Public Schools general counsel Jollee Patterson to Melanie Quinn
Email from Vicki Phillips to Peter Cookson
A report generated by consultant Marilyn Crawford, and what the Portland School District paid for it
WWeek 2015