Worcester resident S. Paul Reville, one of the architects of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, is the new chairman of the state Board of Education, Gov. Deval L. Patrick announced yesterday.

Mr. Reville, who is the president of the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy in Cambridge and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, replaces Christopher R. Anderson as chairman. Mr. Anderson, chairman of the Massachusetts High Technology Council in Waltham, will remain on the board. Henry R. Thomas III, president and CEO of the Urban League of Springfield, will step down from the board, according to Department of Education Spokeswoman Heidi P. Guarino.

“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,” Mr. Patrick said in a press release. 

This will be Mr. Reville’s second stint on the state Board of Education. His first was from 1991 to 1996.

He said he spoke to the governor Monday and agreed to become chairman, a volunteer position. Mr. Reville’s earlier appointment to the board was by a Republican governor, William F. Weld.

“This is a return under a different administration and different circumstances but still similar kinds of challenges,” Mr. Reville said yesterday.

He said the board and the state have come a long way with standards, assessments and accountability, but need to increase districts’ capacities to educate all students to high levels. He said the state should also work on “Those things beyond the boundaries of traditional schools,” such as early childhood education, wraparound services for students and extended school time.

“I think there’s a lot to be done if we’re to move forward from this plateau we’ve been on,” he said. He predicted that the MCAS test will exist for the foreseeable future — “It is not time for a wholesale abandonment of MCAS,” he said — and he called charter schools “a vital part of the state’s education system.”

His appointment was praised by people on both sides of education debates.

Roberta R. Schaefer, executive director of the Research Bureau in Worcester and a former member of the board of education, said she expects Mr. Reville “will bring education reform to the next level.”

“He has advocated some major changes in the way public education is delivered in the commonwealth, including charter schools, greater autonomy for principals, rigorous standards and accountability through the curriculum frameworks and MCAS exams, improved teacher education and new models of union/management negotiations,” Ms. Schaefer said. “I expect that he will bring all his research and experience to bear on his new position.”

Mr. Foley, a friend of Mr. Reville’s, was thrilled to hear of Mr. Reville’s appointment and praised him for having “a balanced view.”

“He was really one of the original architects of that whole education reform and really understands both sides of the issue,” Mr. Foley said. “I would hope that there’s kind of an opening of the doors a bit to really engage in a greater level of constructive dialogue about what can we do collectively to improve education and without people pointing fingers or being in pitched battles against each other… Paul’s a person who can really build those partnerships.”

Mr. Reville has been active in education locally and on the state stage for years. From 1985 to 1997, he was executive director of the Alliance for Education, Worcester’s regional educational advocacy organization; and in the late 1980s, he helped establish the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, which helped create the Education Reform Act. In 1991, he and Mr. Foley (now a Worcester School Committee member) were co-chairmen of the Coalition for Worcester’s Future, which successfully pushed for an override to fund city schools. From 1997 to 2002, he was director of the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform at Harvard University.

More recently, Mr. Reville was chairman of the Worcester Education Partnership, the group that oversaw the city’s reorganization of its large high schools into small learning communities.

Mr. Reville, who has worked as a teacher outside traditional schools, has a total of six children and stepchildren, two of whom currently attend Worcester public schools. Although accepting the chairmanship will mean juggling his already full schedule, he said, “I really couldn’t say yes quickly enough.”

Besides Mr. Reville, the other members of the state Board of Education are Mr. Anderson, Vice Chairman Ann J. Reale, who is commissioner of the state Department of Early Education and Care; Harneen Chernow, a representative of the Service Employees International Union Training and Upgrading Fund; Thomas E. Fortmann, a mathematics consultant from Lexington; Patricia F. Plummer, chancellor of the state Board of Higher Education; Sandra L. Stotsky, an independent researcher from Brookline; and Zachary S. Tsetsos, chairman of the State Student Advisory Council and a senior at Oxford High School. The board’s next meeting is Tuesday.

return to top of page ^