Tuesday, July 20, 1999
Study: Ohio education agency lost, inefficient
BY ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS — The state Education Department lacks reliable data, ignores many requests for information and is not driving education policy in the state, according to a study it commissioned.
The study noted deficiencies ranging from agency employees not returning telephone calls to a perception that the department views local schools as an enemy rather than ally.
“There are a lot of criticisms and a lot of opportunities,” spokeswoman LeeAnne Rogers said Monday of the study released last week.
“There are certainly wonderful staff here dedicated to education and children,” she said. “This is kind of a call to action and wake-up call, that, hey, we need to better coordinate our work, answer phones, talk to our customers.”
State Superintendent Susan Tave Zelman ordered the study after taking office in March. Conducted by the Dayton-based management consulting company KPMG, it cost $380,000.
The report portrays the agency, with 550 employees and an annual budget of $121 million, as inefficient and overly bureaucratic. It has too many meetings, doesn't pay attention to its workforce and has no way of figuring out if its programs are working, the study says.
It notes there are “significant questions” about whether the department is ready to help districts once statewide performance standards kick in next year. Districts meeting fewer than 10 of 18 minimum standards will be put on academic emergency or academic watch.
The agency is already implementing changes, including a centralized phone center, and a rule that employees who take a call stay with it until the caller gets the information sought, Ms. Rogers said. The department is also instituting a centralized system for data and improving its human resources department.
Ms. Zelman is meeting with educational leaders around the state to build support, Ms. Rogers said.
Getting the department to answer questions has always been a frustration, said Randy Boroff, principal at Beachwood High School in suburban Cleveland and a member of a panel that selected KPMG for the study.
“The answer you get depends on who you speak to,” he said Monday. “What happens is you did what you needed to do, and if you found out it was the wrong decision, you corrected it. It was easier to do it that way than get an answer first.”
Sue Westendorf, vice president of the state school board, said the agency hasn't reacted to needs the way it should have, leaving it to others in the government to act. She cited the legislature's requirement that every Ohio pupil be able to read by the end of the fourth grade, and Gov. Bob Taft's OhioReads project to recruit 20,000 volunteer reading tutors.
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