Inside the Department of Education (with Kirsten Baesler)

So, Kirsten, you're the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Basic question to start out with.

What is the Office for Elementary and Secondary Education?

I get asked that question all the time, so it's a great one to start with.

So I say I do everything kindergarten through 12th grade, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, everything that it says in its name.

And what are the kinds of things that people might think, oh, well, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Department of Education, they must be responsible for...

X. Curriculum, teaching licenses, teacher pay, all sorts of things like that.

And as you know, that's not what we're responsible for.

That's not what we do.

But you have that conversation.

You explain to them what you do.

Federal responsibility, state responsibility, then, of course, local responsibility.

So you're over the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

People think, well, they must run the schools.

Don't run any schools.

They don't.

We do not run any schools whatsoever.

So on a day-to-day basis, what is your work at OESE? That's the abbreviation, OESE.

What does it look like?

So obviously, we work closely with the secretary's office, and she has a set of supplemental priorities.

We embed those supplemental priorities as we provide...

It's basically the Office of Elementary Secondary Education is basically split into two divisions, if you will.

One of the divisions... deals with our formula grants.

And by formula grants, that's our Title I, our Title II.

And for those that aren't in education or are not really education wonky, that's the funding that is appropriated by Congress on a formula basis for states to be delivered out to the state education agencies.