D.C. State Superintendent of Education Deborah Gist has resigned after two years on the job to become the top education official in Rhode Island, according to city education officials.
She will be replaced by former Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Kerri Briggs, a top official said. Briggs, who is an authority on charter schools and individual school governance, served in her federal role since March 2007 under former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.
Gist, who was appointed to the state education office in 2004 by then-Mayor Anthony Williams, oversaw the transition of the department as it merged with several other offices under Mayor Adrian Fenty’s Public Education Reform Act of 2007.
In her role as state superintendent, she acted as the overseer of federal funds to D.C. public schools, including the city’s nearly 100 charter schools. Extensive data collected for the No Child Left Behind education law, from the number of dropouts to passing rates on standardized tests, also came through Gist’s office.
“It’s going to be a tremendous loss for D.C.,” said City Councilman Kwame Brown, D-at large. “Deborah had true deliverables and a vision for where she wanted to go … and she was never afraid to say, ‘This is how you can measure me.’ ”
Mary Levy of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs worked with Gist at the Office of the State Superintendent for about four years and commended Gist’s ability to navigate the often-confusing division of power between the role of the superintendent and the more visible schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.
“There must have been some frustration in the role,” Levy said. “She wasn’t really running that office anymore; Michelle Rhee is.”
Both Brown and Levy commended Gist’s ability to bring community perspectives into the decision-making process, something for which she earned accolades from parents.
“You don’t find enemies of her,” Brown said.
In conversation, Gist referred to Rhee in terms of respect and friendship, but observers often questioned Gist’s power to influence change.
Numerous calls to Gist’s office were not returned, and Rhee was unavailable for comment Wednesday afternoon.
