The Detroit Public Schools board has chosen St. Louis-area Superintendent Connie Calloway to lead the city's struggling school system and simultaneously voted to oust the current superintendent, a move that angered some activists who wanted the search to start over and caused others to erupt in applause.

Calloway, superintendent of 5,700-student Normandy, Mo., schools, beat out Detroit's current Superintendent William Coleman III and Doris Hope-Jackson, board vice president of Harvey, Ill., schools. Seven board members voted in favor of Calloway, three against her, with one abstention: board President Jimmy Womack….

Coleman's ouster is effective immediately…. Calloway's appointment comes at a tumultuous time for the nearly 120,000-student Detroit schools. She will head a district that is under a state-mandated plan to reduce a $200 million deficit and recently proposed shuttering up to 52 schools to save money. She also will lead a system that loses more students annually -- about 10,000 -- than the number enrolled in her current district.

Jennifer Mrozowski, The Detroit News, March 9.