When selecting a new leader for the St. Paul schools, picking a hometown candidate is not always considered the best choice. Outsiders, after all, can bring fresh ideas and a new leadership style to deal with serious problems such as an achievement gap between white students and students of color; declining enrollment; budget shortfalls and strained relations with staff.

And our tendency is to think that someone from the outside must know more than the person who lives or works here. Superintendents have become the free-agent stars of the education system. They work in one district for a time and then get recruited away by another district for more money and or prestige. Sometimes they get buyouts to leave or retire.

It's a difficult job with many people to please and, in this day and age in Minnesota, fewer resources to work with. They must get along with their school board, the teachers' union, the parents, their principals. They have to be the public face of the schools and, at the same time, run a multi-million dollar operation and confront difficult, sometimes intractable problems, especially in urban districts.

When there's a candidate who seems to have some answers and a winning personality and she/he comes from another state, our reaction is to be impressed. That's what happened with St. Paul's last superintendent, Meria Carstarphen. She has now left us after three years for Austin, Texas, and another superintendent's job. But we still have the achievement gap, declining enrollment, budget problems and strained relations with staff.

The first major job of the new school board is to select a new superintendent from six finalists recommended by a search firm. There will be open interviews, the board will select three finalists who will interact more with staff and the public and a finalist is expected to be named by the end of the month.

All things being equal, I'm hoping the finalist is from the Twin Cities and is familiar with the St. Paul schools and the education system in Minnesota. With all the issues facing the district, we simply don't have time for an outside candidate's learning curve. For all their problems, the St. Paul schools have some wonderful teachers, staff and principals, caring parents and conscientious students. The district offers a variety of excellent academic programs from pre-k through senior high. We need a new leader who appreciates the uniqueness of the district and the challenges it faces; who understands that parents and staff are part of the team; who is a visionary and a collaborator and who can speak passionately on behalf of the district's 39,000 students. And we need someone who is committed to staying for more than three years. St. Paul schools have problems, but it's not too late to solve them if we work together.

I know that my family, including my 6th grader and my 9th grader, are counting on our school board members, who just ran for election, to make the right decision about the next superintendent. Theirs may be the most important decision for the St. Paul schools in many years. Think local.