Responding to an outside evaluation of the New Jersey Department of Education that calls into serious question the agency’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities, the Our Children/Our Schools campaign has called on Governor Jon Corzine to convene a panel of key stakeholders to develop and oversee an immediate plan for "corrective action."

The "management audit" of the NJDOE was ordered by the New Jersey legislature last fall in response to concerns about the Department’s performance and its capacity to meet increasing obligations, including implementation of a new statewide monitoring system, expanded oversight duties for County offices, and development of a new school funding formula.

In a September 14 letter to Commissioner of Education Lucille Davy, OC/OS wrote, "The report findings portray an agency that is in serious disarray, disconnected internally, and with critical external partners, and incapable of carrying out basic legal and educational responsibilities.... The report also makes clear that the reorganization of the NJDOE, instituted earlier this year, is insufficient to address the systemic problems in the governance, workflow procedures, staffing, technology, and communications at the NJDOE."

Calling on the Governor to act, OC/OS declared, "it is imperative to immediately begin work on a detailed NJDOE corrective action management plan. The process for preparing this plan must be open and transparent, in order to begin to rebuild public confidence in the agency." It urged the Governor to convene a panel that could work in "collaboration with the State Board of Education, Legislature, Governor's Office, and concerned education stakeholder groups."

The Department evaluation was conducted by the national management-consulting firm, KPMG. Its report, released late Friday afternoon on Aug. 17, focused on two tasks that were recently added to the Department’s areas of responsibility: the New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum (NJQSAC), the state’s new accountability system for monitoring school districts, and CORE, a new state law that substantially increases the scope of the county superintendents’ responsibilities and authority. A detailed analysis of the findings in the KPMG report by Education Law Center (ELC) found issues that affect—but go far beyond—those two areas. Among the major issues KPMG identified are:

• Misalignment between the state’s strategic plan for public education with NJDOE goals and objectives
• Competing and inconsistent decision-making processes between the State Board of Education and the NJDOE
• Minimal input from stakeholders on NJDOE’s reorganization
• Lack of clarity about the roles and functions of former Abbott division staff and other staff.
• Vacancies in 84 out of 678 or 12.4 percent of the budgeted staff positions at the NJDOE.
• Inadequate staffing levels
• Absence of established implementation teams
• Lack of training or technical assistance provided to internal staff; and
• Lack of communication within the NJDOE about the interpretation of CORE, QSAC and the implications for their implementation.

The September 14 OC/OS letter notes that "The KPMG evaluation documents that the NJDOE presently is simply incapable of carrying out its essential responsibilities, particularly those mandated in NJQSAC...[NJDOE] is also already falling short of its obligations under NJQSAC to provide technical assistance during the development of the district improvement plans, and lacks staff capacity to conduct the in-depth evaluations and offer necessary technical assistance as required by law." OC/OS called for a reassessment of the entire NJQSAC process and timeline until these issues are addressed.

In a September 21, op-ed column published in the Star Ledger, ELC Executive Director David Sciarra wrote that, "KPMG's findings of an agency in disarray put the ball directly in Corzine's court. Without his personal commitment to tackle this festering problem, it's unlikely we'll have real change....And because key legal mandates are at risk, lawmakers must not allow the KPMG report to be swept under the rug. Public hearings are essential to allow KPMG to present its findings, to press for prompt corrective action and to ensure follow-through. Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) should empower a special joint committee to immediately begin this type of aggressive oversight.

At this writing, the Governor’s office has not issued a response to the KPMG findings. NJ legislators, who originally ordered the evaluation and authorized the $628,000 spent on the audit and report, have also not responded, though several have indicated they are considering holding hearings on the report and its findings.

Prepared: October 1, 2007