Panel must fairly set future of ROE’s

You may recall my colleagues and I were thrust squarely into the spotlight last summer when Gov. Pat Quinn decided to veto funding for regional superintendents’ salaries and services. We were able to get our pay restored but now are back in Springfield preparing for review by a commission about our future.

I am a member of the commission, whose mission is to examine the State Board of Education and Regional Offices of Education to “determine which duties and responsibilities should be provided regionally to more appropriately and efficiently deliver services.” A similar commission in 2009 made five recommendations that went nowhere. So what can be different this time?

Two approaches are crucial. The committee must focus on the real question at hand, and only that question. And it must do so with a commitment to transparency and fairness. We must hope regional superintendents, and our education system, are not facing another ill-fated commission process. At least do not have an inherent conflict of the 2009 commission with state Superintendent Chris Koch in charge of reviewing his own agency at ISBE.

ROE’s welcome the scrutiny and will show in great detail why we matter to our schools and provide great value for taxpayers. We also hope to dig into why ISBE’s roles are too often unclear, duplicative or just plain bureaucratic. Quality education is the foundation of our quality of life. We must cast a laserlike focus to ensure our public schools meet ever-higher standards. The new commission should embrace new leadership and new solutions to old problems. ROE’s are ready and challenge Chairman Norm Durflinger and the other commission members to be ready as well.

Darlene Ruscitti

DuPage County regional superintendent of schools