Reed Unveils Agency-Wide Strategic Plan

Outlines Vision for Better Supporting Indiana Students and Schools

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Friday, October 6, 2006
CONTACTS:
Jason Bearce, 317-232-6618
Jeff Zaring, 317-232-6622
Risa Regnier, 317-232-0501

Superintendent of Public Instruction Suellen Reed today unveiled a new strategic plan that aligns the Indiana Department of Education’s efforts and resources to better support the improvement of K-12 students and schools.

“We are asking more of our students and schools today than ever before,” Dr. Reed said. “The driving force behind this plan is ensuring that our Department is well-positioned to assist Indiana schools in raising student achievement and to provide better information to policymakers and the public.”

The Department-wide strategic vision, the result of nearly a year of intensive work, offers nearly 60 recommendations for aligning, guiding, strengthening and improving the agency’s efficiency and performance. Crowe Chizek and Company LLC, a consulting firm experienced in leading public sector planning efforts, conducted more than 50 interviews and focus group sessions with staff and outside stakeholder organizations between November 2005 and March 2006 in preparing the plan.

Each strategic plan goal contains multiple objectives and action items that will be overseen by a “Team Sponsor” from Reed’s executive cabinet. Reed has charged sponsors with facilitating the implementation of each action, which will include clearly defined team members, roles and responsibilities, timeframe, deliverables, evaluation metrics, and communication.

“The development of the plan was a critical step, but the real work to put the plan into practice remains,” Dr. Reed said. “This is an aggressive, agency-wide undertaking that requires crucial changes in how we look and operate.”

Work to implement the strategic plan’s recommendations begins immediately using existing staff and resources. The Department’s biennial state budget request does include funding to support the actions below:

• Establishing a Division of Best Practices – This new division within the department will serve three supporting roles aimed at promoting needed departmental, district, and student improvement:
1) Planning & Policy Development; 2) Special Projects Management; and 3) Grants & Alternative Resources.

• Developing a Data Warehouse – Building upon its current data collection system, IDOE will implement a centralized data warehouse providing on-demand access to K-12 data, including: financial data, highly qualified teacher data, student demographics, test scores, student mobility, graduation rates, dropout rates, and participation rates in various educational programs and services (e.g., special education, alternative education, etc.). On a local level, this data will allow school corporations to review and to revise local policy, implement best practices, and examine individual and collective student academic progress. At the state level, it will provide a fuller understanding of student academic achievement and the success rates of educational programs.

• Implementing Performance Pay – The Department will deploy a compensation plan in 2007 based on employees' job performance evaluations. This tiered plan will reward high performance and provide incentives for individual employee performance improvement.

Reed noted that the plan is an evolving “work in progress” that will be regularly revisited over the next three to five years as the Department makes progress toward these objectives and sets new goals in the future.

The complete Indiana Department of Education Strategic Plan is available online at www.doe.in.gov/strategicplan