States Chart New Directions for Education with a Little Help from Their Friends. Solutions. Issue No. 8
Author: Layland, Allison
Date: 2016-08-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: State Departments of Education,Federal Aid,State Aid,School Districts,Government Role,Governance,Federal Legislation,Technical Assistance,State Agencies,Strategic Planning,Performance,Conferences (Gatherings)

For decades, the regulations attached to federal education funds have shaped the forms and functions of state education agencies (SEAs), especially as state funding for these agencies has stagnated or diminished. In fact, the relationship between the SEA and the state's districts and schools has been colored by the strong tint of federal influence. How will states now repurpose their education agencies in this era of devolved control? How will SEAs step back from the grinding demands of daily government activity, stave off the always-blazing fires of education politics, and with ample time and collective intelligence, reshape their organizations and reset their goals and strategies? How will they reconceive their relationships with their districts, schools, and communities? How will these agencies manage their own personnel in different ways as the nature of their work changes? Recognizing that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) would open opportunities for new thinking about the role of the state in education, the Building State Capacity and Productivity (BSCP) Center--one of seven national content centers supported under the U.S. Department of Education's Comprehensive Centers program--developed a strategic performance management (SPM) technical assistance process to assist SEA leadership in redefining their agency's direction, creating an organizational structure to carry out that direction, and putting in place a performance management system to encourage productivity and innovation. The process brings &quot;strategic planning&quot; together with &quot;performance management&quot; to build a cohesive system to engage people in performance-focused work, report on progress, adjust course based on results, and seek better ways to carry out the agency's mission. With a facilitation manual hot off the press, two BSCP Center consultants began working with the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) in September of 2015, just ahead of ESSA's passage. Two consultants from the South Central Comprehensive Center (SCCC) joined the BSCP Center personnel, meeting for two days in Little Rock each month. The first day, the four consultants and ADE Chief of Staff (designated as Chief Performance Officer for this project) nailed down the agenda for the following day's mental calisthenics with the ADE Commissioner and 15-member leadership team. In January 2016, the BSCP Center's consultants launched the same SPM process with the Virgin Islands Department of Education (VIDE), assisted by the Florida &amp; Islands Comprehensive Center (FLICC), meeting with the VIDE team for three days each month. In both Arkansas and the Virgin Islands, the days with the BSCP and regional center consultants were matched by meetings and work between these sessions. Part of that work was the methodical vetting of the emerging strategic direction with internal and external constituencies, getting feedback, and making adjustments. Strategic Performance Management process is presented in this report.