6/2/08

Columbus Dispatch Editorial

Education reform in Ohio could get a major energy boost if the state school board heeds Gov. Ted Strickland’s call for a dynamic, visionary leader to take over the Department of Education.

Susan T. Zelman’s resignation as Ohio’s superintendent of public instruction, announced Wednesday, provides the opening for such an appointment.

Strickland has made improvements in funding, academic standards and accessibility at the primary, secondary and college levels — a top priority of his administration.

He transformed the position of chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents into a cabinet-level post and filled it with Eric D. Fingerhut. This change brought unprecedented focus to the task of creating a more-unified state university system, encouraging colleges and universities to eliminate weak and duplicative programs and to concentrate their resources on the programs each does best.

Fingerhut has made himself the public face of higher-education improvement in Ohio, and that leadership is bearing fruit.

Ohio’s primary and secondary schools desperately need the same kind of leadership.

Strickland wanted to take a similarly direct role in primary and secondary education with a cabinet-level Education Department director who would report to him. Unfortunately, the legislature declined to approve the change, with some lawmakers claiming it would “politicize” education policy.

Such thinking ignores the fact that education, along with every other important service provided by the state, unavoidably is political. Whenever limited resources have to be allocated among programs with virtually unlimited demands, politics is the means of reaching compromises. The Department of Education needs a leader with the political skills to negotiate many challenges, including budget-making and academic-content controversies.

Zelman, who served for nine years, was well-regarded for her mastery of policy issues and analysis of what schools need to do to improve students’ performance.

The next superintendent should be able to take some of those recommendations and turn them into measurable progress in Ohio’s classrooms.

He or she also should be prepared to bring greater focus and energy to the Department of Education, an $8.3 billion-per-year bureaucracy Strickland has justifiably called unwieldy and fractured.

Although the State Board of Education has the constitutional authority to choose the superintendent, members have said they’ll welcome input from Strickland. Given the governor’s determination to promote school reform, that would be wise.