A version of the following commentary appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The administrative tectonic plates in Jefferson City just shifted, leaving Missouri’s education system at an unexpected crossroads. Dr. Karla Eslinger has announced her retirement as state commissioner of education effective June 1, exiting the top spot at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) after only two years on the job. With her deputy commissioner of learning services, Kelli Jones, also stepping down on the exact same day, the Missouri State Board of Education has an opportunity to reshape education in the state.
This leadership vacuum comes at a critical historical moment. Dr. Eslinger’s brief tenure followed a decades-long career as a teacher, local superintendent, and state lawmaker. Her appointment was widely seen as a victory for traditional public education groups who valued her insider, Missouri-native pedigree. But her exit after only 24 months underscores a deeper reality. Steering a massive state agency with a multi-billion-dollar budget through a rapidly shifting educational landscape is an entirely different beast than running a local school district. It also highlights a critical flaw in how our state approaches these executive searches—only looking at the existing educational establishment within our own borders.
By limiting the talent search to familiar Missouri circles, the State Board continually pulls from the same institutional echo chamber. The board now finds itself embarking on a critical executive search. How they approach this selection will dictate whether DESE spends the next few years protecting entrenched institutional interests or boldly executing a transparent, student-centered vision.
The standard bureaucratic playbook for a state-level search is completely predictable. Hire a national firm, gather a generic wish list from traditional education lobbying associations, and recruit an in-state career superintendent whose primary talent is maintaining a steady ship. But Missouri doesn’t need an institutional caretaker. Missouri needs an operational reformer—and we need to look nationwide to find one.
Managing DESE is fundamentally a chief executive role, not a classroom management job. It requires a mastery of data systems, fiscal transparency, and structural modernization. Many of the most successful educational turnarounds in recent history occurred in states that broke the provincial mold. When states like Indiana, Florida, and Ohio overhauled their education departments, they didn’t just promote from within. They searched nationwide for leaders who had a proven track record of dismantling bureaucratic inertia.
To find transformational leadership, the State Board must look outside the standard internal pipeline. For example, they could search for:
- A reformer: A leader who has already done the heavy lifting of modernizing data infrastructure or rolling out student-centered funding models in another state.
- A policy strategist: An executive from a national, data-driven policy network or foundation with a deep understanding of how to translate legislative changes into ground-level results.
- An operational disruptor: A proven executive with a corporate or logistical background who views school systems not as fixed geographic monopolies, but as dynamic service providers accountable to consumers.
The standard interview process for public officials often rewards the candidate who can recite the most educational buzzwords. We’ve all heard them: “holistic success,” “supporting the whole child,” or “collaborative frameworks.” The State Board needs to filter out the talkers from the doers by throwing out standard Q&A sessions in favor of strict, competency-based screening. Finalists shouldn’t just give a speech. They should be handed a blind dataset containing Missouri’s most pressing structural knots, such as our persistent literacy gaps or how to assign letter grades to schools and districts. And they should be required to present a 100-day operational roadmap for solving them.
The next leader of DESE isn’t entering a stable, quiet environment where they can slowly settle in. They are taking the wheel of an education ecosystem where stakeholders are demanding data, accountability, parental choice, and real results. Their primary mandate must be transparency and efficiency. They must be fully committed to dismantling the administrative red tape that the establishment uses to block alternative pathways and protect funding at all costs, even as the number of students in the state declines.
The State Board of Education has a rare opportunity to reshape Missouri’s educational trajectory. We do not need a commissioner whose primary goal is to keep traditional, local interest groups comfortable. We need to run a relentless, nationwide search to find a leader who recognizes that the ultimate accountability in education is owed to parents and to taxpayers.
