Super searches should be open

As members of the school boards in Texas City and Hitchcock look for a new superintendent, we hope they’ll find a way to make the process open to the public.

Specifically, we hope the boards will decide the names of the finalists for the job will be made public.

That system has a couple of advantages.

First, it would let all candidates who apply know what would be expected from the start.

Second, it would allow the public to see a real decision being made, rather than going through the charade of a staged anointing.

That openness lends credibility to the process. And credibility is vital to any governing institution that hopes to have the confidence of the governed.

As most readers know, The Daily News has fought to get rid of a loophole in the Texas Public Information Act that allows school boards to choose superintendents in secret.

In Texas, most school boards choose someone and then give the public 21 days to get used to the idea.

The problem with that process is it leaves the public in the dark while the real decision is made. A decision implies a choice between X and Y, or perhaps between X, Y and Z. An announcement, after all the discussion is over, that X has been chosen might be many things. It is not a decision made in public.

Please don’t see this as an argument of the newspaper against either one of these school boards. We’ve made the argument that the law should be changed for years.

We make it, year after year, because we think a process that excludes the public in this way undermines credibility in what is perhaps the most important decision any governing board ever makes.