Vermont isn’t exactly on a high-traffic route for top-ranking U.S. officials, but on Wednesday, about 150 principals, superintendents and other school leaders found themselves dining with Deb Delisle, an assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education.
Delisle, who directs elementary and secondary school policy for the department, was a keynote speaker at an annual conference hosted by the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA) for the state’s education leaders. Speaking in the Oscar Wilde Ballroom at the Killington Grand Resort, Delisle gave a policy-light talk about the importance of having strong leaders in schools.
Gov. Peter Shumlin stopped in to introduce Delisle. “Deb is the highest ranking person from the Department of Education to visit the state in a long time. Having her here means everything to us.”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Vermont four years ago.
Shumlin, who made education the central theme of his State of the State address, lifted a core theme from what’s become his education stump speech — students aren’t being trained appropriately for the jobs available in the state, and unless “every single kid moves beyond high school, we are not going to win on the jobs front.”
“Two-and-half years ago employers were looking at their boots when I went to see them, more often than not, and saying ‘Hey, we are doing a layoff’ or ‘We are thinking of doing a layoff.’ Now, they are telling a different story. They’re saying ‘Hey we’ve got jobs, we have opportunities, we just can’t find enough folks trained in the skills we need to do the jobs we have.”’
Delisle spent four years as the state superintendent of Ohio, and after congratulating her work there, Shumlin made a jab at the state’s Republican governor, John Kasich.
“The only problem is their governor,” Shumlin said, after describing Ohio as a “tough state.” Shumlin is chair of the Democratic Governors Association, and Kasich is running against Ed FitzGerald, a Democrat, next year.
Delisle told Shumlin she wished he had been the governor of Ohio when she worked there.
The partisan banter stopped after Shumlin departed, as did talk about education as a tool for economic growth.
“Kids don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican,” Delisle said. “What they care about is whether or not you make the best decision for them at that time.”
“Every decision you make tells students what you value. … When you buy a bus, I’m not telling you not to buy a bus, but you have to stop and think about the cost of the bus and what programming you might not have or what staff member you might have to eliminate if the bus is approved.”
Delisle mentioned President Obama’s early education proposal, which would give states $75 billion during the next decade to enroll more low-income students in preschool.
“We’re really excited about that and hopefully we’ll get some traction on both sides of the aisle with that,” Delisle said.
But Delisle also told the crowd, with sequestration and budget cuts, “we are all under the gun in terms of resources.”
Delisle dropped the policy talk and references to funding needs for the rest of her speech. Instead she talked about the need to create a positive “culture” at schools, something, she noted, “that doesn’t cost a thing.”
Principals can improve schools by changing the way they talk with students, or what they put on hallway walls, Delisle said.
Delisle helps schools that have significant “interruptions” get back on their feet. She said she’s spent a lot of time recently working in the Newtown, Conn., community after the mass shooting in December and assisting schools in Oklahoma damaged during the recent tornado there.
Vermont schools haven’t had a disruption of that scale recently, but Delisle warned the education leaders not to get too comfortable.
“We all become very routine in our practices in schools … we become OK with the status quos,” Delisle said, adding that principals have to keep pace with the times in order to keep education relevant for their students. In rural regions, in particular, teaching “across time zones and cultures” is important, Delisle said.
Ken Page, the executive director of the VPA, said it was refreshing to hear Delisle’s speech. Usually when he’s in contact with Department of Education it’s about rules and regulations.
