Daeschner is old and should give others a chance?!

There are a handful of (good) reasons to not be excited about the hiring of Stephen Daeschner by the Greater Clark County school system.

Joan Simunic with a bizarro op-ed piece in the C-J on Daeschner's age...

Stephen Daeschner was a well-respected superintendent of the Jefferson County Public Schools. He may do a fine job for the Greater Clark County Schools. However, he should have declined the offer to apply for the job when asked to do so, and he most certainly should not have accepted the offer when it was made to him.

Daeschner has told reporters that GCCS pursued him for this position. By accepting, Daeschner is implying, whether intentionally or not, that there are no qualified educators currently in their 40s or 50s who could serve as superintendent as well as he can. This undermines the credibility of those that have 20 to 30 years of experience, many of whom have graduate credentials in education. In 1993, Daeschner felt qualified, at age 51, to take the helm of JCPS. Had he not been given that opportunity it is unlikely that GCCS would have pursued him now. It is a shame that Daeschner was not benevolent enough to give some other 50-year-old a similar opportunity....

Weird. She blames Daeschner and not Greater Clark. She argues that Daeschner should be benevolent by passing up the job. She misses the slippery slope: When should Daeschner start practicing such benevolence?

Many of the baby boomers are experiencing The Kid Syndrome effects. We sit here with advanced degrees and decades of experience under our belts. We have played by the rules, respected our elders and done the grunt work to make their projects work — even though it often took incredible creativity on our part to overcome the flaws in their systems. We have bided our time trying to work our way up the ladder....

Part of the problem: she sees this as simply moving up a ladder, presumably based on seniority.

As he prepares to take the helm at Greater Clark County Schools, Daeschner is already teaching the children the most powerful lesson for success: "Look out for No. 1."

As opposed to Simunic who is looking out for...