Dr. Paine has become something of a rock star in the education world over the past few years for his efforts in promoting his vision of education’s future. As West Virginia State Superintendent of Schools Paine’s leadership transformed state schools. He brought an emphasis on classroom technology integration that has made West Virginia a (some would say the) national leader in technology use. He instituted a focus on 21st Century skills that included critical thinking and problem solving in the classroom. During his tenure as State Superintendent, West Virginia adopted increasingly rigorous methods of student assessment.
While Paine was busy shaping West Virginia’s education policy and direction he was also active in national policy discussions. He was president of the Council of Chief State School Officers and a member of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) Board of Directors. He also served on the National Assessment Governing Board where he helped lead that organization’s work establishing policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as The Nation's Report Card.
Race to the Top Frustrations
During Dr. Paine’s final year as State Superintendent the West Virginia Department of Education and the administration of then-Governor Joe Manchin pursued a legislative agenda designed to overhaul state education law so that it complied with Federal requirements for receiving Race to the Top funds. In effect, Manchin and Paine drank the school reform Kool Aid being passed around by the US Department of Education.
Manchin’s legislative agenda, among other things, would have moved West Virginia closer to the charter school movement (the state currently doesn’t have a statute allowing charter schools), changed how often teachers were required to be evaluated, altered state accreditation practices, and made it easier to remove administrators from struggling schools.
While the West Virginia Senate approved much of the agenda, almost none of it was approved by the Education Committee in the state’s House of Delegates. About half the members of the Education Committee were current or former educators themselves. The legislature’s failure to amend West Virginia’s code meant that the state couldn’t submit a successful Race to the Top application. Race to the Top is a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education program designed to promote Federal reforms in state and local district K-12 education.
The Dilemma of State Control
Dr. Paine’s tenure as State Superintendent may have been enlightened and progressive from the standpoint of its emphasis on technology integration, its search for more meaningful and rigorous student assessment, and its focus on 21st Century educational approaches. However, it was also marked by a growing number of state takeovers of local county school districts.
Paine inherited state control of some county school systems from his predecessor. But at the end of his time as State Superintendent at least five county school systems (Grant, Fayette, McDowell, Mingo, and Preston) remained under the direct control of the West Virginia Department of Education. Lincoln County’s school system was restored to the control of their locally elected board of education in December, less than a month before Paine’s departure. Lincoln County had been under state control for a decade.
Some scientific research in the past has shown state control to be an educational dilemma. While it may be a necessary evil when a school system develops fiscal problems or is unable to afford to adequately maintain its facilities, state control rarely leads to any academic progress, nationally. West Virginia’s McDowell County school district has become a classic example of this dilemma. A number of necessary consolidations have been forced through under state control and the district now has several new state of the art facilities, But academically, McDowell County’s schools rank 55th out of the state’s 55 school systems at the end of Dr. Paine’s tenure as State Superintendent and after nine years of direct state oversight.
Dr. Paine’s Future
Dr. Paine joined the West Virginia Department of Education in 2003 as Deputy State Superintendent of Schools and became State Superintendent on July 1, 2005. He is leaving public service to take up a position with educational publisher McGraw-Hill, where he will work as vice-president of Strategic Planning and Business Development. Under Paine’s administration West Virginia adopted some of McGraw-Hill’s most popular products (among them, Acuity and Writing Road Map) for extending the learning environment outside the classroom and for online assessment. One of Paine’s new responsibilities will now be expanding the market for such products.
Prior to moving to the WVDE in 2003, Paine served as superintendent for the Morgan County school district in West Virginia. As a principal he won the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award. He worked as a principal, assistant principal and teacher in West Virginia. Paine earned his doctorate at West Virginia University and did further graduate work at Marshall University and Ohio State.
West Virginia has not yet replaced Dr. Paine with a new State Superintendent.
Additional Resources:
State Education Leader Joins McGraw-Hill - CNBC
Preston Schools Seized by State Board - Challenge West Virginia
Greg Cruey - Greg Cruey is an educator and journalist. He works as an educational interventionist specializing in a small, rural school in Central ...
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