Navigating Educational Transformation: A Q&A with State Board Leader Paolo DeMaria

In this insightful Q&A with the Carnegie Foundation, NASBE President and CEO Paolo DeMaria shares his thoughts on the vital role state boards can play to transform educational policy and practice. He also shares about the growing demand from state leaders to make high school more engaging, meaningful, and career-aligned. Find an excerpt from the interview below.

 

For those who are not as familiar, what is NASBE’s role and why do you think state boards of education are so critical to education today?

NASBE is a membership organization representing state boards of education across the country. At NASBE, we develop, support, and empower citizen leaders to strengthen public education systems. We facilitate engagement and provide services that enable state board members to be their best. We offer a full range of resources you might expect from a membership organization, including publications, convenings, professional development, and initiatives that help members assess barriers, enabling conditions, and opportunities for action and innovation.

State boards of education are critical for education today because they provide a place for citizens’ voices to be heard and create space for open and transparent deliberation about proposed policies. The relationship between Boards and State Education Agencies can also vary in important ways—some boards select their chief, for example, and others don’t. State board members can be elected, some appointed; they are often businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, or have held public office. Many have backgrounds in education, and some boards reserve a seat for a teacher representative and student members. No matter their composition or appointment process, Boards come together to reflect, deliberate, and help set the agenda and long-term vision for public education in their states. While a board may not be able to enact laws, the majority have primary authority over state assessments, graduation requirements, and determining teacher licensure requirements. State boards can also elevate issues based on data, research, and best practices from other states, and when they do this, they can catalyze important policy action and promote effective practices

What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges currently facing state boards of education?

We often spend too much time on disagreements when there’s actually a lot of common ground. For instance, everyone wants children to learn to read; this is not a partisan issue. While there are some areas of marginal disagreement, it’s important to focus on what we agree on and where we can make a difference.

Opportunities for state boards are numerous. For example, state boards have an opportunity to articulate what different and better learning looks like. This means clearly defining what students should know and be able to do, measuring that through assessments, and creating accountability structures that identify areas for improvement. However, history has shown that mandating different policies is not always the solution. There is still a strong desire for positive change, and many recognize that we need to adjust our approaches and provide support and professional development opportunities for educators to be successful. Ultimately, co-designing changes with educators, students, and families, rooted in data and best practices, is essential for fostering a collaborative environment that leads to real progress.

What work are you most excited about that NASBE is undertaking in the next year?

While it is difficult to choose one body of work, I am particularly excited about our upcoming high school transformation work given the energy surrounding it and the wonderful partners that are invested. I believe there’s immense potential for improvement in high schools because when you see a high school that’s a “rock star,” it makes you realize that every school could reach that level. Transforming the high school experience can be a fulcrum for catalyzing change in middle and elementary schools, and state boards of education are well-positioned to advance this work.

Our approach to high school transformation efforts is to catalyze interest and provide support to our members so they might drive more ambitious agendas. Over the next two years, NASBE will facilitate deeper engagement with state boards of education and build their capacity to lead high school transformation efforts. State boards can enable systems to deliver rich, rigorous high school experiences for every student. They often use what we call the ‘power to convene’ and the ‘power of the question’ to catalyze action. For example, the Indiana State Board of Education recently launched initiatives to make a high school diploma valuable for every graduate: It changed graduation requirements, streamlined learning standards, and developed a data dashboard aligned to key characteristics that students should acquire before graduating. The Indiana board continues to get feedback from stakeholders on making improvements to the new requirements.

We’ve learned that transformation does not necessarily require significant funding right away; it’s about getting people to agree on what better looks like and moving in that direction.

 

Read more from this interview with the Carnegie Foundation.