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Paul Pastorek accepted Gov. Bobby Jindal’s invitation to stick around as state superintendent of education. It’s not an easy job, to say the least, since Louisiana—no less East Baton Rouge Parish—has monumental problems with the quality of K-12 public education.

Still, Pastorek, appointed last March after the death of longtime superintendent Cecil Picard, is eager to push forward as an agent of change to improve not only how schools work but how the Louisiana Department of Education does business. He’s glad to try and meet the challenge—as long as isn’t hobbled by a business-as-usual mind-set. If that happens, Pastorek says, he’s history.

Business Report spoke with Pastorek to learn his thoughts on rescuing public education in Louisiana, including East Baton Rouge, which has four schools categorized as academically unacceptable, a number likely to raise to 23 by September based on current numbers, he says.

Question: I’m sure you’ve been talking with the new governor a lot lately. What’s he saying to you?

He has sense of urgency about public schools and education in Louisiana. He has asked that I identify one or two important issues that we will try to fund in the upcoming legislative session. I’ve been working closely with his staff. I’ve put number of ideas on the table. I’ve had the benefit of nine months to be here and think about this problem, so we have a number of strategies we’ve been developing, and some we’ve actually begun to implement on a small scale. Right now, I’m in the throes of identifying those one or two major efforts that we will pursue that will have a real impact on the classroom.

Q: How bad is it?

Here’s a little sound bite: The (Education Week magazine) Quality Counts report issued two or three weeks ago said Louisiana is excellent when it comes to education policy and poor when it comes to implementing it. We’re No. 2 in accountability in the country and No. 5 in our teacher quality and training program, but 47th in overall academic achievement and 50th in fourth-grade English language arts.

Q: What can the state Department of Education do?

That’s the question we’ve been wrestling with. What is the state Department of Education’s ability to change that? The Department of Education has been a regulatory and policy implementation agency, but it is not a technical support agency. We are not in the business of helping districts solve their problems, and we should be. That’s my argument. There are many types of support we need to give.

Q: This isn’t something districts can deal with on their own?

If you look at the schools, the four in Baton Rouge that have been academically unacceptable for more than five years, the schools don’t have the capacity to change. The district has demonstrated it doesn’t have the capacity to change those four schools, so somebody has to take some action. Do I relish the thought of gathering the lowest achieving schools in the state and trying to improve them? That’s really a daunting task. But somebody has to take some action. Somebody has to do something differently, so if the district can’t then we have to.

Q: So a state takeover is inevitable?

Taking schools over is one strategy. But there are other strategies available to us. Going in and providing technical support is one way to do that. The state Department of Education would not try to do the work, but would manage others to do the work. If we were to provide significant technical support, then we should hire contractors who are highly competent and trained then we should manage them. If we don’t hire contractors we can help the districts direct resources where they really need to be, and help them manage their resources better.

Q: What are other potential strategies?

We can look at how do we compensate our employees. Can we compensate our employees in such a way as to engage and motivate them to a higher level of performance? That’s a way to try to improve performance on the ground. We have a long history of giving across-the-board pay raises. We give a 30-year veteran who has a doctoral degree the same pay raise as a first-year teacher who has a bachelor’s degree. That doesn’t motivate people. How do we look at that differently? That’s something were exploring.

Q: You’ve said that the state’s universities could play some role in helping turn around failing schools. How would that work?

We have a mechanism for a university to either operate a charter, or we’ve created another vehicle, which we’ve called university partnership, in which they would have a substantial role in supporting management of the school. They would not take ownership of it in the sense that they’re ultimately responsible, but they would have significant role in it. So we’ve got these two vehicles. That’s what we’re thinking about but nothing’s finalized. I’ll be making recommendations in a couple of weeks.

Q: Your plan to spend $1.5 million in emergency aid to the worst schools ran into some resistance from BESE members, didn’t it? Are you worried about being hogtied by micromanagement?

First of all, the board approved it 10-1. That wasn’t reported. I like to have board members take a good hard look at things and give me input because it’s valuable. Some were concerned. I told them myself I have those same concerns. But do we do nothing and get nothing? Or do we do something and perhaps succeed? My answer is a lot of children are suffering because of the quality of education. If I have the opportunity to do something, even though it’s not perfect, I will take that opportunity. Another reason I was very strong on the idea: I explained to them that this is not an effort to help these schools this year, but this is an effort aimed at trying to do business differently in this department.

Q: Still, it seems like a lot of good intentions get bogged down by a that’s-not-how-we-do-things-around-here kind of attitude.

I’ve got a very good board. Occasionally they get into micromanaging, but I’m lucky so far. I will tell you that if I run into that kind of situation, I’ll just close my door, get in my car and get back into the practice of law. I’m doing it because I love it and because it has a good purpose. But the moment governance get messed up or I can’t try do something different, I’m out of here.