Paul Reville
Paul Reville is a U.S. American politician, teacher, principal and educational researcher who served as the Massachusetts Secretary of Education from 2008 to 2013 under Governor Deval Patrick. He currently serves as the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Biography

At the beginning of his career, Reville worked as a volunteer and youth worker for AmeriCorps VISTA and, later on, as a teacher and principal of two alternative high schools. He went on to found  the Alliance for Education in Worcester and Central Massachusetts in 1985 as part of the Public Education Network. Prior to his position as state secretary, Reville held the chairs of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, the Massachusetts Education Reform Commission (1996-2002) and of the Massachusetts Commission on Time and Learning, co-founded the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) in 1988, and worked as executive director of the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform. As a co-founder of MBAE, Reville helped develop and advocated for Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, which introduced charter schools and standardized tests in a bid to orient the state's education system towards outcomes-based education. Since 1997, Reville has been a member of the HSGE faculty, including a tenure as director of its Education Policy and Management Program.

On March 11, 2008, Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick (D) appointed Reville to the office of Massachusetts Secretary of Education, which he held until January 14, 2013. In this position, Reville established the Executive Office of Education, pushing for education reforms such as the Massachusetts Achievement Gap Act of 2010, the state's Common Core State Standards Initiative and its Race to the Top proposal. After the end of his tenure as state cabinet secretary, Paul Reville created the Education Redesign Lab in 2014 as part of HGSE, which is aimed at broadening educational opportunities for children in the United States.

Paul Reville holds a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College and a Master of Arts from Stanford University, along with five honorary doctorate degrees.

Criticism

During his tenure as Massachusetts Secretary of Education, Reville faced calls for resignation over his promotion of charter schools, with e.g. the Boston Herald accusing him of "gross political manipulation" concerning charter school applications. By contrast, Reville himself has criticized the prevalence of for-profit charter schools in Michigan in 2016.