I was invited to City Hall Friday morning to participate in the Dowagiac business and community leaders forum for Dr. W. Craig Misner of Michigan Leadership Institute to gather information for the Union School District superintendent search for the retiring Peg Stowers’ successor.

It was heartening that this process ended with a bang after going to the “community” forum Thursday evening and being the only person in the Union High School media center besides Craig and his wife.

The Misners assured distraught me there were plenty of people with plenty to say who availed themselves of earlier focus groups which went on at intervals all day.

I felt fortunate to listen to a group that included our mayor, city manager, college president, the councilman who chairs the Borgess Lee-Memorial Hospital board, a couple of pastors, the library director, a former school board member and informed, articulate business people, such as real estate broker Dave Springsteen and downtown merchant Kris Lamphere of Who Knew? I was in listening mode and didn’t really hear anything with which I could quibble.

I’ve been of a mind for a while now that Dowagiac needs a school chief with exceptional communication skills to tell our story, good and bad, so we define ourselves before someone else does.

Self-promotion has worked pretty well for Edwardsburg, since none of its scores was higher than fifth. Many fell below the top 10 and even in the middle of the pack.

Leadership searches are as complicated as you make them, even if I am also reminded of Jesse Jackson’s lament that if he walked on water the media would report he can’t swim.
Most interesting to me was that although the school board has yet to address Dowagiac’s 2010 Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) test results, these community leaders aren’t waiting and are well down the road to being dissatisfied with the data.

Where Niles Community Schools scored above state average in each of 16 administered tests for the first time ever, Dowagiac finished below state average in 14 categories.

We come across as a mediocre also-ran and the business community knows how hard it is to recruit for economic development or to sell homes with a school system that across the board ranks consistently in the bottom half of area districts and last in Cass County.
Fair or not, that’s reality.

On the other hand, we start out competitive in third and fourth grades when parents are more involved.

Third grade, 90.5 percent of Dowagiac students met or exceeded state standards in math, but four reached 100 percent, St. Joseph, 99.4 percent; Decatur, 98.7; Marcellus and Edwardsburg, 98.2; Niles, 97.8; and Cassopolis, 96.4.

Dowagiac didn’t rank in the top 30. State average was 94.8. Third grade English, Dowagiac was at 89.8, at state average.

Lake Michigan Catholic, Lakeshore, Mattawan, Bloomingdale, Decatur and Niles all exceeded 94.

Fourth grade math saw Dowagiac’s final foray over state average, 93 percent to 92.3 percent Michiganwide. But Marcellus had 100 percent, Edwardsburg 96.3 and Niles 94.7.
Fourth grade English, with state average at 84.1, Dowagiac was at 83 percent while Marcellus hit 91.4 and Edwardsburg reached 91.2.

Dowagiac, at 79.2 percent, just missed state average of 79.5 in fifth grade math, but Edwardsburg was 90 percent, Niles was 86.2 percent and Marcellus was 85.7 percent.
Dowagiac also fell below state average in English (83.5 vs. 85.2) and science (78.7 vs. 81).

In sixth grade, Dowagiac’s 82.9 in English was beneath 87.7 state average and Edwardsburg’s 94.1, Niles’ 91.4 and Cassopolis’ 91.

Social studies scores in sixth grade show a 73.4-percent state average, with the Chieftains at 66.2 percent, behind Brandywine, Cassopolis, Gobles, Marcellus, Coloma and Bangor.
In seventh grade math, Dowagiac slid to 76.9 percent, well below state average of 82.2 percent, Niles at 92.3 and Edwardsburg at 91.1.

Seventh grade English, Dowagiac found itself at 75.6 percent, behind state average of 82 percent and Cassopolis (86.9), Edwardsburg (86.2) and Niles (84.6).

Average scores of 70.3 percent were reported in eighth grade math, where Dowagiac’s 58.5 was closer to the bottom, ahead of only Bloomingdale, Fennville, Hartford, Cassopolis, River Valley and Benton Harbor.

Eighth grade English saw Dowagiac at 80.7 percent, below state average of 83.4, but ahead of Edwardsburg’s 79.9 percent.

Edwardsburg eclipsed state average of 75.9 percent in eighth grade science, while Dowagiac was down at 66.7.

John Eby is Daily News managing editor. E-mail him at john.eby @leaderpub.com.