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By The Los Angeles Daily News Editorial Board

Before school board members decide who they want to be Los Angeles Unified’s next superintendent, they must agree on what they want.

That won’t be easy. But it’s vital. If they don’t come to a consensus soon about the qualities they’re looking for in an L.A. schools chief, the risk is that promising candidates will be discouraged from applying to work for such a fractious and unfocused bunch of bosses.

It has been a year since Superintendent John Deasy resigned — under pressure following the failures of the school district’s iPads initiative and MiSiS student record-keeping system — and the LAUSD board found out it was going to have to choose a permanent replacement. It has been four months since interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines announced his intention to leave the post by the end of 2015. Now time is running short.

This week, the executive search firm that’s helping the board with the search presented the results of its efforts to gather public opinion about what’s needed.

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