D.C. Council members praised D.C. State Superintendent Deborah Gist on Tuesday for the multimillion-dollar transition her office is undertaking to oversee the city’s education reform, an encounter that contrasted sharply with the panel’s tense hearing last week involving Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.
The state agency’s transition, on track to cost about $9 million, began on Oct. 1 and included the transfer of employees from D.C. Public Schools and other agencies into the state office, along with responsibilities previously handled by those offices.
Those in and out of the system have called the move one of the most dramatic in the city’s history. By April, the office will have about 350 workers and a budget of $274 million, making the operation the largest it has been to date.
“The potential is enormous,” said Mary Levy, director of the Public Education Reform Project. “Under No Child Left Behind, state agencies have enormous power and considerable responsibility. This means that Rhee will propose what to do, but Gist will help carry it through.”
In updating the council on the transition, Gist discussed plans to change special education “from the inside out,” and to develop a data warehouse to track individual student progress. Gist conceded, however, that her office is still very much behind in the effort to gain federal grants for the schools.
Since 2006, D.C. has been considered to be in high-risk status by the U.S. Department of Education. That status carries with it lost dollars and an uphill battle to get back on
track.
“How we’re doing is not well,” she said. “When we took this function over, the Department of Education made it clear that ‘We’re glad you’re in this role, but the deadlines are the same.’ ”
The state office is one the public often doesn’t understand. But, more and more, officials and those in the know say the success of the school system hinges on its effectiveness.
Where Rhee and Gist’s offices differ is in scope. The state has responsibility to oversee not just the city’s traditional and charter public schools, but also to monitor adult and early childhood education and to do so from a more overarching manner than the chancellor’s office’s daily supervision.
“It remains to be seen how well it will work out,” said Walter Smith, executive director of the D.C. Appleseed Center, of the state agency’s added power and responsibility. “But for too long we’ve had the functions united in one place.”
