Summary
In response to long-standing problems with student academic performance, the condition of school facilities, and the overall management of the D.C. public school system, the D.C. Council approved the Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007 (Reform Act). The Reform Act made major changes to the operations and governance of the D.C. public school system, including giving the Mayor authority over public schools, including curricula, personnel, and school facilities. While other large urban school districts have transferred governance of schools to their mayors, D.C. is unique because it functions as both local and state offices for many education responsibilities. GAO's testimony focuses on (1) the status of the District's efforts to reform its public school system, and (2) what the District has done to establish accountability for these efforts. To address these issues GAO reviewed documents, interviewed District education officials and interviewed principals from nine D.C. public schools.
The early efforts to improve D.C. public schools have focused largely on broad management reforms and other activities that lay the foundation for long-term improvements to the D.C. public school system. The broad management reforms included the transfer of many functions from D.C. public schools (DCPS) into the new office of the state superintendent, which could allow for more effective oversight of the District's education programs. Prior to the Reform Act, there was no clear separation of funding, reporting, and staffing between local and state functions. A new facilities office was also created to improve the conditions of DCPS school facilities. Moving state-level education and facilities functions out of DCPS is intended to give the head of DCPS, called the Chancellor, more time to focus on issues that directly affect student achievement. The management reforms also included specific human capital initiatives such as new DCPS central office personnel rules and new systems for evaluating central office and state-level employee performance. In addition, both the State Superintendent and the Chancellor are working to improve their data systems to better track and monitor the performance of students, teachers, and schools. DCPS also completed its school consolidation plan that identified over 20 schools for closure over the next several years. In addition, the school facilities office is working to address the backlog of repairs. The director of the facilities office told us that he found that school heating and plumbing systems were inoperable, roofs leaked, and floors needed replacing. In addition, he said many schools were in violation of District fire codes. To address the backlog and ongoing facilities needs, the new office undertook several repair programs this summer and early fall. The D.C. Mayor and education officials have introduced a performance-based process designed to establish accountability for their school reform efforts. This process includes weekly meetings to track progress and accomplishments across education offices. In addition, the Mayor's office required agencies to develop and follow annual performance plans. D.C. Department of Education officials told us that they review the individual performance plans of District education offices, such as DCPS and the state superintendent's office, to ensure they are aligned and not working at cross-purposes. However, the department has yet to develop a long-term districtwide education strategy that could integrate the work of these offices, even though it included the development of such a strategy in its 2007-2008 performance plan. While developing a strategic plan takes time, it is useful for entities undergoing a major transformation, such as the D.C. public school system. A strategic plan helps organizations look across the goals of multiple offices and identify if they are aligned and connected or working at cross-purposes. Without a plan that sets priorities over time, implementation goals, and timelines, it may be difficult to measure progress over time and determine if the District is truly achieving success. In addition, given that leadership changes, a strategic plan would provide a road map for future District leaders by explaining the steps taken, or not taken, and why.
Recommendations
Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director:
Team:
Phone:
Cornelia M. Ashby
Government Accountability Office: Education, Workforce, and Income Security
(202) 512-8403
Recommendations for Executive Action
Recommendation: To help ensure the long-term success of the District's transformation of its public school system, the Mayor should direct the D.C. Department of Education to develop a long-term districtwide education strategic plan. The strategic plan should include certain key elements including a mission or vision statement, long-term goals and priorities, and approaches and time frames for assessing progress and achieving goals. It may also include a description of the relationship between the long-term strategic and annual performance goals. In addition, the strategic plan should describe how coordination is to occur among the District's education offices.
Agency Affected: District of Columbia: Executive Office of the Mayor
Status: Open
Comments: The state superintendent's office and the State Board of Education collaboratively developed the District's state-level, 5-year strategic plan, and released it in October 2008. This state-level plan spans early childhood and kindergarten through grade 12 education (including public charter schools). The plan was developed with stakeholder involvement throughout the process. Officials from the state superintendent's office told us they involved District officials, and stakeholders representing early childhood education, business, and higher education communities, as well as other stakeholders while drafting the plan. In particular, they involved DCPS and the D.C. Deputy Mayor of Education's Office in discussions of the plan. In addition, in September 2008, the state superintendent's office held one public forum to solicit stakeholder input on the draft of the document, and accepted comments on the draft on their Web site. The office released a revised version of the plan within a month of the public forum. Stakeholder involvement in formulating strategic plans allows relevant stakeholders to share their views and concerns and gives stakeholders a way to understand the rationale for certain decisions. Ultimately, stakeholder involvement can result in increasing stakeholder support, or ownership, of the strategic plan. Overall, the plan includes many key elements of an effective strategic plan such as the inclusion of objectives that delineate how the state superintendent's office intends to attain each of its goals. The short-term objectives are supported by various strategies, objective measures, and performance targets. DCPS released the draft of its 5-year strategic plan in late October 2008. The DCPS 5-year strategic plan outlines the organization's vision and goals, and includes many elements of an effective strategic plan. For example, the plan explains how DCPS's six broad goals are interrelated and how they support the vision. However, the DCPS plan does not systematically delineate measurable outcomes with clear time frames and does not always identify key external factors that could increase the risk that an initiative may fail. Officials from the Deputy Mayor of Education's office told us that as part of their office's coordinating role, it ensured that DCPS and the state-level strategic plans were aligned. However, the office had no documentation showing its efforts to coordinate these plans, such as an alignment study. We found that the two plans were aligned in terms of long-term goals. However, we could not evaluate whether more detailed, objective measures and performance targets were aligned because the DCPS strategic plan did not always include specific objective measures and performance targets."
