Deborah A. Gist is the most important bureaucrat whose name you don’t know. Gist, 40, is the District of Columbia’s state superintendent of education, which makes her responsible for enforcing federal laws and making sure that each of the 70,000-plus school students in traditional and charter schools are getting a quality education.

Q: Why does D.C. need a state office?

A: One reason is that the state education agency is the agency that’s responsible for holding all schools accountable. And now that we have the No Child Left Behind Act, that means that if schools aren’t performing, they’re not going to continue to exist.

There are successful urban schools. There’s no reason that we can’t be educating children in our community. That’s the most important reason.

This story continues below
Advertisement

Q: One of the things you hear about No Child Left Behind is that the government just turned on the spigot and didn’t care about following up on how the money was spent — especially on the charter schools.

A: Our monitoring of federal funds, because we haven’t had a robust [state education agency], has not been what it should have been. That’s one of the reasons this office was created.

Q: So how’s that going to change?

A: What was happening before was that D.C. public schools had dual missions. It was overseeing its own mission as well as overseeing in the charters. Our mission is crystal clear. Our mission first is to make sure that all children receive a quality education. And also to monitor and make sure those federal funds are being used appropriately. So that’s how it’s going to be different.

Q: Six months from now, how are people going to know whether you’re doing a good job or a bad job?

A: I would say that actually, in large part, what we do ought to be seamless for families.