Reville To Chair State Ed. Board

Graduate School of Education (GSE) Lecturer S. Paul Reville was appointed chairman of the State Board of Education (BOE) last month by Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78, after heading up the governor’s task force on PreK-12 public education.

“With Paul at the helm of the Board of Education, the Commonwealth gains a leader with a broad perspective on local, national and international education issues and solutions,” Patrick said in a press release announcing the appointment on August 22.

Reville has held many leadership positions in the education sector, including serving as a board member of the BOE, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, and executive director of Harvard’s Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform. He is currently director of a policy master’s program at the GSE, as well as President of the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy.

Reville’s primary objectives as chairman of the BOE include helping underprivileged students to achieve on par with their better-off peers.

In an e-mailed statement to the Crimson, Reville wrote, “We hope not only to close learning gaps, but to realize the promise of our society that one’s destiny need not be determined by one’s socio-economic circumstances as a child.”

Jill Norton, executive director of the Rennie Center and a student of Reville’s at GSE, said he is successful because he is able to rise above politics in order to focus on the big picture.

“The response [to his appointment] in the education community has been so overwhelmingly positive because nobody feels like they’re going to be excluded,” Norton said.

Reville faces a full docket this fall, between the retirement of state education commissioner David P. Driscoll and the beginning of a 10-year plan to overhaul public education in Massachusetts.

Still, Reville remain optimistic about the challenges balancing his duties at the GSE with his new position on Beacon Hill.

“I’ll be teaching about what I do, since my courses concern policy and school reform,” wrote Reville. “I hope my experience will give students a special window on the policy process.”