Education Week - February 27, 2013 - 19

EDUCATION WEEK

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

www.edweek.org

Q & A: Ed. Dept.’s K-12 Chief Shares Policy Outlook

Education Week: You took a job
without knowing if you would still
have it a few months later, given that
President Obama’s re-election was not
guaranteed. Why?
Deborah Delisle: I think it was to have
the opportunity to work with an administration who I felt had really placed
a very strong emphasis on education,
particularly in the pre-K-through-12thgrade space, which is where my background lies. I’d always wonder about it if
I didn’t take it. I took the plunge.
You were a local superintendent and
then became a state chief.
So this is my 37th year in education.
And I pretty much have played all the
roles in education. Teacher, principal,
central-office administrator, school
district superintendent, and then the
state chief in Ohio for three years. And
I think that one of the values of coming
to the department is to bring that voice,
not just the pre-K-through-12th-grade
space, but all of those roles.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan recently spoke to the National
School Boards Association. And a lot of
those boards take issue with some of
his policies, perceived as a top-down
approach. Given your background as
a local and state official, how has that
shaped what you do now that you are
part of this federal bureaucracy?
I was still a state chief during this administration, and when there was a lot
of work being done around transforming
schools, I always would think about it
from what is the endgame, what is the
goal? It was not unlike when I was a superintendent receiving guidance or regulations from Columbus, from the [Ohio]
state department. I guess I viewed it in
the same kind of way: So how can we
make this work in our particular context
or our group of kids?
You were a state chief when Mr.
Duncan came into office. What was a
policy that you particularly welcomed as

Duncan Mulls
NCLB Waivers
For Districts
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

student growth as part of teacher
evaluations, and identify 15 percent
of the lowest-performing schools for
targeted interventions.
So far, the department has
granted waivers to 34 states plus
the District of Columbia. Eight
more have applications pending.

a state chief, and what was one that you
were particularly frustrated with?
I really welcomed the opportunity
to think about transforming schools
through the Race to the Top. And I will
say that it frustrated me as well. ... Trying to pull together a grouping of people
and having everybody think really boldly
about what education could be like for
the students in the state of Ohio, ... it’s
a pretty overwhelming task. ... And
when we were not successful [in the first
round of competition], you just get this
big lump in your stomach and you feel
defeated.
The feedback we received was really,
really critical. And so [in the successful
second round] we brought together over
100 people with the help of the nonprofit
in our state, and it represented over 70
organizations. ... I think that there were
a lot of lessons learned about partnerships and collaboration and creating a
strength about a vision for Ohio that
could last and sustain itself beyond a
person—beyond me as a state chief or
beyond the governor or beyond the chancellor of higher education. ... There were
several times I reminded myself that this
was not unlike the regulations I would
sometimes put on local school districts. ...
So it was sort of a great humbling experience to know you don’t have all of the
answers.
Your umbrella now is quite large. So
where are you focusing your energy?
We’re modeling what we want states
to do. ... We are designing a very robust
technical-assistance program to support
states. It’s connecting states. ... So if there
are two states that are having some great
success with interventions with lowestperforming schools, ... we can be the conveners of those states coming together to
share best practices. ... We currently are
reaching out to education organizations.
We’re reaching out to teachers’ unions
to figure out what every organization is
doing, and how can we support them in
their work, and then how can we connect
them with their work.

Iowa and California had their requests rejected because they did
not meet the federal department’s
requirements.
During this fourth-round application window, a few more states
are expected to ask for flexibility,
department officials said. Holdouts Pennsylvania and Texas
are among those likely to make
requests.

Consortium to Apply
Also among the applications
will be the 10 districts—including Los Angeles and San Francisco—that make up the Califor-

Matt Roth for Education Week

Last April—less than seven months before President Barack Obama’s reelection—former Ohio schools chief Deborah S. Delisle was confirmed as the top
point person on K-12 policy within the U.S. Department of Education.
As the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, Ms. Delisle
is in charge of about 60 programs—including Title I, the precollegiate flagship
focused on disadvantaged students—and more than $20 billion in federal grants.
Perhaps her most important task is overseeing the implementation of waivers
under the No Child Left Behind Act, the current version of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act.
Ms. Delisle sat down recently with Education Week for a wide-ranging interview.
What follows is an edited transcript.

Deborah Delisle, the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education
at the Education Department, hugs Carl Mitchell, a senior at The Academies at
Frederick Douglass High School, during a tour of the Baltimore school.

One of the greatest things for the
department in the first term was that
Congress handed you billions of dollars
in additional money. You don’t have
that now. How can you get done what
you want to get done without any extra
money? And maybe less money?
We are committed to helping states
do the work they’ve already started. So
whether it’s Race to the Top, whether it’s
flexibility, whether it’s School Improvement Grants, we’re out there helping
people think about sustainability and
scalability.
You know I’ve been out to a lot of schools
that have received School Improvement
Grants—there’s $4 billion invested in the
lowest-performing schools across the country; it’s a huge catalyst for people. But I’ve
also seen schools in those communities
who don’t have sig money adopting practices those sig schools are doing.
And I think that’s one of the real powers

nia Office to Reform Education.
Known as core, they are moving
ahead with changes their state
is slow to embrace (such as the
Common Core State Standards
and new teacher evaluations).
They met with Secretary Duncan
on Feb. 20.
Core Executive Director Rick
Miller said, “We did leave with
high hopes. There were no guarantees, but the conversation was
completely focused on how to
make it work as opposed to the
reasons it wouldn’t work.”
The consortium specifically
wants flexibility in spending Title
I funds, which are currently locked

DEB DELISLE: “We are

committed to helping states
do the work they’ve already
started. ... If in the next four
years this administration
can lift up ... lessons from all
the various programs that
have been funded, ... I think
that would be a great asset.”
that this administration has created. If in
the next four years this administration can
lift up those lessons from all of the various programs that have been funded and
see how they can be implemented in other
ways, I think that would be a great asset.

up in providing interventions such
as tutoring and school choice in
schools that do not meet annual
academic targets. A waiver could
free up $110 million in federal
funds a year among the 10 districts, said Michael Hanson the
superintendent of Fresno, which is
a core member.
“This is not us seeking a waiver
from nclb … but seeking a waiver
to something that’s more comprehensive,” said Mr. Hanson, who
also attended the Feb. 20 meeting
with Mr. Duncan.
Given that the department’s
waiver process applies only to
states, it is wholly unclear how

—MICHELE McNEIL

a district-level waiver process
would work. Carmel Martin, a top
aide to Mr. Duncan, who attended
the interview, said that there are
“challenges” because under the
part of the nclb Act that gives
the secretary waiver authority,
Mr. Duncan would have to make
the case that the district-level
flexibility would improve student
achievement or instruction in
those districts.
In general, said Ms. Martin, the
assistant secretary for planning,
evaluation, and policy development, “we would want to, just as
we did at the state level, have a
very high bar.”

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Education Week - February 27, 2013

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