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New state schools chief says ODE will help city schools
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Paolo DeMaria and Krish Mohip both started new jobs this week, and each man faces significant challenges.
Mohip, the first chief executive officer of the Youngstown City Schools, must create a plan to guide the school district out of the academic abyss.
DeMaria is state superintendent of public instruction, taking the helm of the Ohio Department of Education, an entity that’s endured a charter-school scandal within the last year.
DeMaria started Monday, and Mohip began Wednesday.
They met Thursday when DeMaria, a former ODE associate superintendent, came to Youngstown.
“We wanted to show him that he has our support,” DeMaria said. “We’re here to help if help is needed, but we don’t want to get in the way. We are vested in this being successful.”
The state superintendent believes Mohip is off to a good start.
“He has a history of taking low-performing schools and increasing the performance,” DeMaria said Thursday in a meeting with the Vindicator editorial page editor and a reporter.
Mohip comes to the city from the Chicago Public Schools, where he worked as an administrator. In one role, he was charged with improving 36 of the district’s lowest-performing schools. Of those, 24 showed significant improvement sooner than expected.
Mohip understands the important roles of teachers, principals and community support in improving the school district academically, the state superintendent said.
DeMaria most recently worked as principal consultant for Education First Consulting. Previously, he served as executive vice chancellor at the Ohio Board of Regents and associate superintendent for school options and finance at ODE.
DeMaria also worked in the administrations of both former Gov. Bob Taft and the late Gov. George Voinovich.
DeMaria says he supports public education.
“I sent my children to Columbus Public for K through eight,” he said.
Ohio’s charter system has come under scrutiny for not measuring charter schools by the same criteria as traditional public schools. Just because some charter schools have been low performing doesn’t mean they all should be painted with a broad brush, DeMaria said.
The same children he sent to public schools in kindergarten through eighth grade went to a charter high school. Judgments should be made based on the quality of education provided, he believes.
“I’m against bad-performing schools no matter what flag they’re flying,” DeMaria said.