Project Management: Lessons from Delaware and Tennessee

THE FIRST 100 DAYS LESSONS LEARNED FROM RACE TO THE TOP ROUND ONE WINNERS AUGUST 2010 Project Management: Lessons from Delaware and Tennessee As Sir Michael Barber, founder of the U.S. Education Delivery Institute, has said, winning the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) competition is at best only 10% of transforming a state’s education system – the remaining 90% is “implementation, implementation, implementation.” To this end, building the right team to implement RTTT is critical to the long-term success of the grant. Although each state will have specific circumstances that influence how it structures its implementation team, the experiences of Delaware and Tennessee offer several potential lessons for Round 2 winners. As will be discussed below, the way Delaware and Tennessee built their teams in the early phases of RTTT implementation differs significantly from the way they are building their long-term capacity. Specifically, in the early phases of RTTT, both Delaware and Tennessee relied primarily on reassigning existing staff to focus on RTTT implementation and bringing in outside consultants to provide short-term project management support. However, over time, both states have begun building long-term capacity by developing an oversight structure, recruiting and hiring new staff, fundamentally reexamining the structure of their state education agencies (SEAs), and bringing in state and national experts to assist with specific RTTT projects. Short-Term As Delaware and Tennessee experienced firsthand, the first phases of RTTT implementation are intense. Not only do states have to finalize their budgets with the U.S. Department of Education, but they also have to assist local education agencies (LEAs) in writing scopes of work and begin implementing state-funded RTTT projects as outlined in their applications. Both Delaware and Tennessee dealt with these immediate implementation challenges by reassigning existing staff to focus on RTTT SCORE • implementation and by bringing in short-term outside consulting support. In Delaware, Secretary Lillian Lowery made several key staff reassignments within the Delaware Department of Education (DDOE) to allow existing staff to focus large amounts of time on RTTT implementation. Specifically, the Secretary assigned Deputy Secretary Dan Cruce to oversee RTTT implementation, with Amelia Hodges (Associate Secretary for College and Workforce Readiness) and Wayne Barton (Director of Teacher and Administrator Quality) being state’s RTTT application, made RTTT implementation the top priority of its three staff members. At the same time, TDOE reassigned several key staff to focus on RTTT implementation, including reassigning its communications director to oversee all RTTT implementation efforts and five high-performing staff members to lead specific components of RTTT (one staff member was assigned to each of the four RTTT assurances and the fifth staff member was assigned to STEM). The GOSPP and TDOE teams setup a twice weekly conference call and a weekly in-person meeting to coordinate their implementation efforts. In addition, Tennessee brought in several outside consultants to assist with short-term RTTT implementation. At the request of the Governor’s office, the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), a statewide education non-profit, hired Education First Consulting, who had helped write the state’s RTTT application, to conduct a two-day RTTT strategic planning retreat. At the request of Commissioner Tim Webb, SCORE also hired J.B. Buxton, former Deputy Superintendent of the North Carolina Department of Instruction, for four weeks to assist TDOE with reconfiguring its staffing structure to focus on RTTT implementation. After these initial engagements, the state hired both Education First Consulting and Buxton on three month contracts, with Education First focusing on overall RTTT project management and Buxton focusing on realigning resources within TDOE to support RTTT implementation. In this way, both Delaware and Tennessee increased their immediate capacity by reassigning existing staff to focus on RTTT implementation and by leveraging external consultants to provide short-term project management support. Over time, however, both states have begun focusing on building the long-term capacity they will need to sustain RTTT reforms. Delaware and Tennessee dealt with their immediate capacity challenges by reassigning existing staff to focus on RTTT implementation and by bringing in short-term outside consulting support. assigned to oversee the process of revising the state’s teacher and administrator evaluation systems to include student achievement (one of the main commitments the state made in its RTTT application). With assistance from private and philanthropic funders, Delaware hired the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company to help accelerate DDOE’s implementation efforts. McKinsey, who also assisted Delaware with its RTTT application, helped the state design and develop documents to support the scope of work process and drafted job descriptions for the long-term staff the DDOE was planning to hire. Like Delaware, Tennessee also built immediate implementation capacity by reassigning key staff in both the Governor’s office and Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) to focus on RTTT implementation. Specifically, the Governor’s Office of State Policy and Planning (GOSPP), who played a key role in crafting the 1207 18th Avenue South, Suite 326, Nashville, TN 37212 • tel 615.727.1545 • fax 615.727.1569 • www.tnscore.org/rttt