Joseph E. Lutjeharms, deputy commissioner of education in Nebraska, has been selected to replace Anne Campbell as commissioner of education beginning Jan. 1.
Mr. Lutjeharms has been deputy commissioner for approximately five years. Prior to that he was a school superintendent in Cheyenne, Wyo.
As Ms. Campbell’s deputy, Mr. Lutjeharms focused on internal education-department operations while Ms. Campbell lobbied and served on national education panels.
She is a member of the U.S. Department of Education’s Commission on Excellence and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She is a former head of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the American Association of University Women.
Mr. Lutjeharms said equalization of education financing and opportunity will be among his top priorities, and that may require some reorganization of school districts. Only Texas has more school districts than Nebraska’s 1,011, and Nebraska is second from the bottom in the percentage of state aid to local districts.
Jerome B. Jones, superintendent of schools in Stamford, Conn., since May 1981, has been named superintendent of the St. Louis system, effective in March. He replaces Robert Wentz, who has assumed the superintendency of the Clark County, Nev., district, which includes Las Vegas.
Mr. Jones, formerly chief of the Providence, R.I., schools, last week described his new position as “a definite challenge.” The St. Louis district, which enrolls about 60,000 students, is in the middle of a drawn-out, complicated desegregation case involving suburban districts in St. Louis County. A trial on some issues in the suit is scheduled to begin on Feb. 14.
