Why do we need an education
secretary in Massachusetts?” was my opening question
during the first of two interviews, lasting several hours,
with S. Paul Reville of Worcester, who assumed that Cabinet-level
position in the Patrick administration on July 1. Twice
in recent years previous governors created such a position,
only to see it abolished as a useless layer of bureaucracy.
Among those publicly opposing the concept was Mr. Reville,
who in the past also objected to bringing the various education
boards under one umbrella. Now, as education secretary,
he endorses consolidation and is presiding over a new reform
program that places the administration firmly in charge
of public education.
What has changed? Governors, for one thing. Having concluded
that the reform he helped to craft in the early 1990s hasn’t
produced sufficient results, Mr. Reville believes Deval
Patrick’s “cradle to career” education
agenda is the answer. He says he opposed specific plans
for an education secretariat in the past because they were
not conducive to progress. “Creating an ‘education
czar’ is not the way to go. Change of governance alone
cannot do the job. You can get distracted by paying too
much attention to governance and too little to educating
children,” he said.
“I am not a czar,” he insisted. “The boards
still retain independence and share power.” He runs
one of the smallest Cabinet offices in the state, with a
$932,000 annual budget and a staff of 10, including interns.
Asked whether he has a deputy, he replied: “We can’t
afford it.”
He rejects criticism that Gov. Patrick has enlarged or restructured
the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Board of
Higher Education, Board of Early Education and the University
of Massachusetts board of trustees to fill them with his
supporters and consolidate his control of public education.
“Every governor takes charge of boards and commissions,”
he said. “That’s what election is all about.”
When it was suggested the boards be abolished altogether,
Mr. Reville opposed the idea. The aim is to make the various
components work together, he said. “The pieces don’t
talk to each other, and the governor thought there was too
much independence. The system needed cohesion. If as secretary
I can help to achieve that, I can make a contribution.”
The product of the idealism of the early 1970s, Paul Reville
sees himself as an advocate, facilitator, builder of consensus
and compromise. He goes around the state, speaking to different
constituencies, explaining the Readiness Project and trying
to win over the skeptics. “I’m a moderate, not
an ideologue,” he told me. “I try to find a
middle road amidst the clamor of the extreme. We want to
develop a system that works for all children. If both the
left and the right are angry with us at times, we’re
probably doing something good.”
The bulk of the criticism comes from those concerned that
Gov. Patrick’s reform initiative, the Readiness Project,
might dismantle or water down the accomplishments of the
1993 Education Reform Act that has served the state well.
Mr. Reville calls such criticism “false accusation.”
He said: “There is no silver bullet. But when 38 percent
of high school graduates who go to college still need remediation,
the status quo is not good enough.”
I’ve followed Paul Reville’s path since 1984,
when he founded the Alliance for Education, a local organization,
backed by business and dedicated to supporting public schools
and learning in general. As executive director, he had built
the alliance to considerable strength and success. When
the 1993 reform act, which he helped to pass, rendered the
mission all but obsolete, Mr. Reville left for other challenges
in education, including executive positions with the Pew
Forum on Standards-Based Reform, the Rennie Center for Education
& Research, a teaching position at Harvard and various
think tanks and commissions, including the state Board of
Education. After an agonizing struggle for survival, the
Alliance for Education went out of business.
Born in an upper-middle class family in Longmeadow (his
father was a corporate lawyer), young Paul attended an exclusive
Benedictine prep school before enrolling at Colorado College
and earning a master’s degree in education from Stanford
University. Attracted to the free-wheeling culture of the
flower generation, he worked as a VISTA volunteer, organized
street workers and taught at Full Circle, an alternative
school in Somerville. At age 25, he joined the Dynamy program
in Worcester, where he stayed for nine years.
“That’s when I decided to settle in the city,”
he recalled. “It felt to me like a community I want
to be a part of.” As the result of two marriages and
adoption, Mr. Reville, 58, is “in charge” of
six children, ranging from one of special needs to the extremely
talented. “They keep me involved, honest and grounded,”
he noted. It also helps him identify with other parents.
“I tell them that, on the parent level, I’ve
been in every situation.”
The Paul Reville I have known over the years is an ambitious,
hard-driving and caring expert — he bristled when
I called him a “technocrat” — who deeply
believes in the cause and seems to have retained a great
deal of idealism. Time will tell whether a former “flower
child” can find success and happiness in the rough
world of education politics.
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