Peter Gorman walked in with his head down. He leaned over to school board member Rhonda Lennon and whispered. The board, he said, had to talk about something in private.

She was surprised, then suspicious. "Is it going to p--- me off and make me want to smack you?" she said.

He wouldn't say. He looked away and she pulled out her phone. She texted board member Tim Morgan, sitting a few seats away, with the thought that had suddenly hit her:

Pete's leaving???

He is.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg's school superintendent announced his exit Wednesday after five years in the hardest job in town. He broke the news at the end of a brief meeting with just a dozen people in the crowd. It felt all wrong. There should've been hundreds in the seats, people standing in the back and crowding the lobby, tearful kids at the microphone, everybody arguing about whether Gorman was a genius or a moron or a little bit of both.

He got better test scores out of low-income and minority students.

He shuffled schools and principals so much that parents fumed about the instability.

He pushed to tie teachers' pay to performance.

He loaded down students and teachers with tests.

He gained national attention for his results.

He caught local grief for how he got them.

There are no bright-line answers when it comes to our schools. CMS has 138,000 students. That means somewhere close to 276,000 parents and guardians. Most of them care more about their children than anything else in the world. Now think about trying to get all those people to agree on how kids should be educated.

Gorman had a philosophy - in short, data mattered more than feelings - and he wasn't shy about making big moves. Those moves turned thousands of teachers, staffers and parents against him. His last major act with CMS - persuading the board to close a dozen schools, mostly in poor neighborhoods - caused the most fury of all.

He also had the bad luck of working here during Charlotte's worst economic times in a generation. He had to deal with budget cuts the last three years. The money dwindled but the demand for great schools never does.

All that was bound to wear him down. The job wears everybody down. School superintendents in big cities last about as long as NFL running backs. Three or four years is a long career.

"Whoever doesn't realize the strain and pressure on him over the past couple of months isn't watching closely," said board chairman Eric Davis.

Being the CEO of CMS is a high-paying, powerful job. But you depend on county commissioners for a yearly allowance. You're guaranteed to anger a large number of your customers. And the stakes? Just the futures of all those children whose parents send them to school in hopes that you know what you're doing.

Gorman, by and large, knows what he's doing. But the first item from the Wednesday meeting showed what a superintendent's job is like.

By itself, it was great news - CMS announced it wouldn't have to lay off hundreds of teachers who thought they were going to lose their jobs. But some taxpayers are ticked that the county gave the schools extra money to avoid the cuts. Other staffers will be ticked that their jobs weren't saved. And a lot of teachers will be ticked that they spent time on Death Row in the first place.

I'd keep my head down, too.

Gorman didn't talk much Wednesday - he gave a prepared statement, answered a couple of questions, then rushed out for a meeting with principals.

He has a fancy new job. News Corp., Rupert Murdoch's giant media company - they own the Fox channels, among many others - is starting an education division. Gorman will be a senior vice president. Here's a bet: Working for the notoriously ruthless Murdoch will be an easier gig than running CMS.

Gorman called Davis on Sunday to tell him about the move. Davis tried to talk Gorman out of it. But Gorman had made up his mind to leave.

Here's a thought: Why in the world would somebody stay?