The authors identified 13 innovative and successful former and current state school chiefs and interviewed them to discover what they see as obstacles to implementing reform and how they were able to overcome those obstacles and improve their states. The authors spent nearly a year researching and interviewing.
The authors found:
- SEAs are overly focused on compliance. Traditionally, SEAs administer state and federal funds and ensure that the SEA complies with the law instead of focusing on increasing student achievement. Many SEAs are stuck in outdated routines, and many state education leaders can’t identify creative solutions to change their agency’s habits.
- There is a lack of transparency. State agencies spend millions or billions of dollars each year, but it is hard to find basic information on how the agencies function and how they spend that money. Agency websites are often difficult to navigate, and rarely do they publish detailed operating information. Researchers, legislators, and the public often have problems understanding what is really happening within the agency.
- Federal funding can hinder SEA operations. Federal funding is essential to state educational operations, but it comes with restrictions. It is tied to specific programs or employees, and state education leaders often have little or no control over how funding is allocated. Some state school chiefs are examining ways to reorganize their agencies around function, rather than funding stream.
- There are bureaucratic obstacles to reforming SEAs. An SEA must adhere to state rules and regulations, including hiring processes, pay scales, and civil service laws. These can all hamper the education chief’s ability to recruit talent and change agency culture. The state education chiefs contacted for the report acknowledged that these laws can be very limiting, and they indicated that creative strategies were needed to work within the system.
After conducting their research, the authors made several recommendations to guide SEAs as they improve their operations and strive to better assist low-performing schools.
Laura Ascione is the Editorial Director at eSchool Media. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland's prestigious Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
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