That got Talkers wondering aloud: When is a school superintendent’s work complete?

Gorman, who announced last week he’s leaving CMS for an executive post with a new education division in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. empire, lasted for five years here.

That beats the average large district superintendent’s tenure, which is about 3.5 years, according to the Council of the Great City Schools, which tracks such numbers.

Let’s face it. As long as there are kids, schools — and the administrators who run them — will have work to get done. Talkers agree that what Davis really meant was that Gorman had set in motion a teacher evaluation process that is as complicated as it is controversial, then left an already divided school board holding the bag (filled, depending on one’s opinion, either with gold or another four-letter word we won’t mention here).

Every up-and-coming school superintendent is a champion of “educational reform,” which is a term so ubiquitous, it defies any meaningful definition. But what that means for the school boards that hire those reformers is that their school systems are turned upside-down with every change in leadership. Successful superintendents are able to right the redesigned ship and set their own course.

In CMS, Gorman’s pay-for-performance plan has tilted CMS on its head and added unwanted turbulence, leaving Davis and his colleagues to watch helplessly as Gorman bails wearing Murdoch’s golden parachute.