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“Classrooms are the same as they were 20 years,” he said. “Sure, the technology is new, but it still comes down to the teacher in front of the classroom. School systems should never lose sight of that.”
In a recent telephone interview with The Norwalk Daily Voice, Sloan gave his perspective on education today and what the city should look for in a superintendent. Norwalk is in the midst of a superintendent search, which it expects to complete by the summer.
The retired educator now lives in Sanibel, Fla., but he stays in the loop on what’s going on in the Norwalk school system and the region, in part through his daughter Katherine Price Snedaker and her sons, Charlie, James and Jack Snedaker.
“I think education has grown more contentious, and with the testing craze that’s taken over, school systems are a political football,” said Sloan. “This leads to some of the financial restrictions that school systems find themselves under, and on a nationwide basis they’re concentrating on preparing kids for tests. But in some ways they’re not teaching them.”
He recalled his years in the Norwalk school system fondly, emphasizing that he “was blessed” to work with excellent boards of education that listened and took its job seriously in setting policy.
The current board shows many of the same attributes, and he said it will be important for the next superintendent to know how to navigate the school board.
“Superintendents have to understand the process, how to work with the board, how to deal with the union leadership,” he said, speaking in general. “Arrogance in a superintendent is what causes them to get into trouble. I don’t know of one superintendent who lost their job because they didn’t understand education or instruction. They lost it because of arrogance.”
To that end, he said that despite the size of Norwalk’s school system with more than 11,000 students), the new superintendent should try to run it as a small town system and “personalize everything.”
“A personal touch is very important,” said Sloan. “Something I did was on every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I spent from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the schools, rotating through each one. You can’t know what’s going on by staying in your office.”
One thing that he introduced that was criticized at the time was breaking down student achievement by race and socioeconomic background, but he believes that such analysis is crucial to improving a school system.
“It gives you targets to work toward,” he said. “You can’t expect to overcome the effects of poverty quickly or easily. People have to be realistic. But you have to have to work against the negative influences in children’s lives.
“Parents have become informed consumers of education for their children. Battle lines are sometimes set up between parents and schools, but in the end if they are supportive of the school and teachers, their children will learn,” he said.
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