The Houston ISD board has voted to keep the names of superintendent candidates mum as it searches for a successor to schools chief Abelardo Saavedra, the Houston Chronicle reports today.

Although not the standard in Texas, some are calling for HISD to make the hiring process more transparent. The Greater Houston Partnership, a business group, has called for an open process. A majority of commenters at the Chronicle's forum have as well.

But Texas law requires that only finalists - one or more - be announced to the public at least 21 days prior to the hire date for the post.

A consultant hired by the school district told the Chronicle that secrecy was necessary to attract top-quality applicants:

Trustees made the decision at the urging of their search firm, Heidrick & Struggles.

Les Csorba, a consultant with the firm, told the board Thursday that applicants are being scared away because they don’t want their current employers to know they are job hunting.

“The most outstanding candidates are those actively involved in a leadership role right now, where they have a number of risks associated with their potential candidacy,” Csorba said.

The Chronicle mentions states where the hiring process for superintendents has been made public. A school board president in one such state told the newspaper that a recent public process in hiring a new superintendent there turned out just fine.

The public process in Tennessee initially worried Karen Carson, who was president of the Knox County school board last year when it embarked on a search for a superintendent. The board released the names of about 15 applicants and televised interviews with five finalists.

“Many, many businesses warned me that it would limit the pool of candidates,” Carson said. “But as I look back over it, I think it was fine. Would I do it again even if we weren’t forced to? Yeah, I would.

School officials and their highly-paid search firm consultants commonly cite the need for silence to recruit within a tight market.

But some school districts have embraced a more transparent process, letting the parents, taxpayers and school district employees in on the process by publicizing finalists' names and debating the top candidates' merits publicly. Recent examples include Michigan's tiny Ypsilanti district and the much larger Harford County, Md., district.

The current superintendent's starting salary was $270,000, and the HISD board president told the Chronicle he expected the district to pay the next superintendent at least that much.

Contact Ann Raber at 713-980-9777 or news@texaswatchdog.org.