Duties Unclear: DOE Accountability Chief’s a Mystery

Duties Unclear

DOE Accountability Chief's a Mystery

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein recently appointed Columbia Law School Professor James S. Liebman as Chief Accountability Officer at the Department of Education. The details of his position remain sketchy, at best, however - no one seems to know what he will be doing, or can account for his whereabouts.

JOEL I. KLEIN: Low profile for new aide. A call to DOE on Jan. 24 produced a switchboard operator who revealed that Mr. Liebman did not have an extension or an office yet. A call to Chancellor Klein's office produced similar confusion - nobody had even heard of Mr. Liebman, though the Chancellor said at the time he announced the hiring that the Chief Accountability Officer would report directly to him.

A Two-Year Hitch?

Where then, was Mr. Liebman? An e-mail to his Columbia account produced an automatic reply.

"I will be out of the office starting 01/12/2006 and will not return until 01/04/2008," Mr. Liebman's auto-reply said Jan. 23. "I am on partial leave from Columbia Law School for two years (beginning on Jan. 12, 2006) working in a position in local government. I will only review my e-mail at this address intermittently during that period and will be unable to respond to most inquiries."

Mr. Liebman's assistant at Columbia, Stuart Sierra, provided a window into the kind of accountability Mr. Liebman could bring to the DOE.

"I've been working with him, off and on, for six months," Mr. Sierra revealed. "I'm sure he is competent at anything he puts his mind to."

'Conscientious Colleague'

Columbia Law School colleague Jeffrey A. Fagan, who co-authored a report on the amount of error in death penalty cases with Mr. Liebman, had high praise for the man he called "the team leader of the project."

"Jim is a great colleague," Mr. Fagan said. "He's one of the most conscientious legal researchers I've ever met."

But Mr. Fagan equivocated on whether the skills Mr. Liebman focused on within the project would translate to his new work in DOE.

"Accountability in context of legal research is very different than accountability at the Department of Education," Mr. Fagan admitted.

Repeated calls to the DOE press office for a description of Mr. Liebman's new job or the reasons for his hiring were not returned. But a quick check of Principals and Teachers showed little evidence of increased accountability so far. A source at the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators said "they don't mind being held accountable, as long as they are told the rules beforehand."