Who will lead Ohio’s schools? 27 applicants for state superintendent include Trump-era

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former U.S. Department of Education official whose agency oversaw the gutting of a push to address racial disparities in school discipline is one of 27 people who applied to become Ohio’s superintendent for public instruction.

Other applicants include a member of the Ohio State Board of Education who resigned Friday and claimed in December that he was asked to lead the search for the position.

The state superintendent is the education chief for Ohio. The superintendent leads the Ohio Department of Education, administers the school funding system, administers standardized tests, issues school and district report cards, administers private school voucher programs, develops academic standards and model curricula, provides educators with professional development, provides professional and technical assistance to school districts, monitors early learning, child care programs and private schools, and licenses teachers and other educators.

Tuesday marked the last day for applications for the position vacated by Paolo DeMaria in September.

The change in leadership comes at a divisive moment in public education, as issues such as equity and social emotional learning have become critical political rallying points. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine asked two members of the Ohio State Board of Education to resign after refusing to rescind an anti-racism resolution that passed after George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, since the Ohio Senate would not confirm their appointments.

Kimberly Richey

Applicant Kimberly M. Richey, is an attorney who served in the U.S. Department of Education under Betsy DeVos from June 2017 to January 2021, including as an acting assistant secretary in the department’s Office for Civil Rights. In another role at the department, she said she determined the Texas Education Agency wasn’t in compliance with federal law that ensures children with disabilities receive an appropriate education.

Most notably, her office under DeVos rescinded the Obama administration’s 2014 non-binding recommendations on how schools could tackle the issue of students of color being subjected to more discipline than their white classmates.

The Trump administration in December 2018 released a 177-page report commissioned after the mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school. The report rescinded the disciplinary effort, saying it made schools less safe because it discouraged school districts from disciplining students for fear that any racial disparity might trigger a burdensome federal inquiry.

As expected, the Biden administration announced last summer that the education department’s Office of Civil Rights would revisit the Obama-era policy.

In December, Richey wrote a report for the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, titled “Enforcing disciplinary leniency: How the Office for Civil Rights dictated school discipline policy and how it could again.” In it, she urged governors and state legislators to take steps to “defend the administrative autonomy of school districts regarding school discipline.”

She also said that state boards of education could form subcommittees to monitor and track investigations prompted by the education department’s Office for Civil Rights and encouraged litigating the issue.

More recently, Richey worked as president of a consulting firm, RealignEd LLC, providing policy and legal advice on educational issues, including the maintenance of student data, student privacy and federal civil rights laws. Her resume says she has drafted model legislation, state regulations and school district policies “that regulate the provision of race-based instruction in K-12 programs and activities.”

She also said she worked with educational agencies, state legislators and governors “to enact model legislation and regulations that enshrine the rights of parents to make educational decisions on behalf of their minor children and protect students’ rights.”

Steve Dackin

Steve Dackin, a member of the Ohio State Board of Education who submitted a resignation letter from the board on Friday, is among the applicants.

Dackin had been an appointed state school board member and then in November, other members of the board made him the vice president. He quit a job running a program at Columbus State Community College on Dec. 1 saying in his resignation letter, “As you know, I have been asked to lead the search for our state’s next Superintendent of Public Instruction, which is underway as I write this letter.”

It’s unclear what kind of role Dackin played in running the search, and how involved he was in designing the job ad. He didn’t reply to a message left by cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer.

A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Education said that the recruitment phase ended Tuesday, and the board is now entering the screening process.

The board will vote on a new vice president at its next scheduled meeting, March 14.

Other applicants:

Other applicants have traditional education backgrounds, including several local school district superintendents and officials in the Maryland, Massachusetts and Nevada departments of education.

The full board meeting is March 14 and 15. At that meeting, members are expected to review the applications and possibly decide who they want to interview.

The following are the applicants. Their applications are below, or can be found here.

1. Rodriguez F. Broadnax: superintendent of Clintondale Community Schools in Clinton Township Michigan, outside Detroit

2. Shannon M. Cox: superintendent of Montgomery County Education Service Center

3. Stephen Dackin: former member of the Ohio State Board of Education

4. Olympia A. Della Flora: associate superintendent for school development for Stamford Public Schools in Connecticut

5. Lindy L. Douglas: superintendent Alexander Local School District in Albany, Ohio

6. Richard D. Duncan, Ph.D. : superintendent of Roane County Schools in Spencer, WV

7. Benjamin P. Edmondson, Ed.D.: former superintendent of Romulus Community Schools in Romulus, MI.

8. Dr. India R. Ford: superintendent and CEO of Education Innovations LLC

9. Richard Fulkerson, Ed.D.: chief administrative officer, Muskingum Valley Health Centers

10. Michelle Grimm: high school counselor, Dover City Schools, president, Ohio School Counselor Association

11. Larry R. Hook: superintendent, Springboro Community City School District in Southwest Ohio

12. Thomas L. Hosler: superintendent of Perrysburg Exempted Village Schools in Perrysburg, Ohio

13. Dr. Jennifer Judkins: assistant state superintendent for the Maryland State Department of Education

14. Finn Laursen: educational consultant for Christian Educators Association International

15. Dewayne J. McClary: senior director of networks and partnership, Digital Promise Global

16. Crystal Middleton: fifth grade English and language arts teacher at Oak Hill Elementary in Oak Hill, Ohio

17. Teresa Moon: Former instructional leadership specialist with the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity in Sembach, Germany

18. Dr. Jonathan Prescott Moore: deputy superintendent for student achievement at the Nevada Department of Education

19. Lawrence M. Paska, Ph.D.: executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies in Silver Spring, MD

20. Heather G. Peske, Ed.D.: senior associate commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

21. John Pfeiffer: works at the Ohio Office of Budget and Management and as a property manager

22. David Paul Quattrochi, Ed.D.: superintendent of the Carrolton Exempted Village School District in Carroll County, Ohio

23. Kimberly M. Richey: president RealignEd LLC., former acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education

24. Richard A. Schroeder, Ed.D.: associate partner in the International Center for Leadership in Education in Boston

25. Arthur Stellar, Ph.D.: founder and CEO of Stellar Advantage Inc. and vice president of the National Education Foundation & CyberLearning

26. Dr. Ronnie Tarchichi: superintendent of Pennsauken Public Schools in Pennsauken, N.J.

27. Asheer Tashfeen: assistant superintendent of administration at Zenith Academy Schools, a K-12 charter school focusing on low-income and students learning English as a second language in Columbus.