Paul Reville

Paul Reville is the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). He is the founding director of HGSE's Education Redesign Lab. In 2013, he completed nearly five years of service as the Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As Governor Patrick's top education adviser, Reville established a new Executive Office of Education and had oversight of higher education, K-12, and early education in the nation's leading student achievement state. He served in the Governor's Cabinet and played a leading education reform role on matters ranging from the Achievement Gap Act of 2010 and Common Core State Standards to the Commonwealth's highly successful Race to the Top proposal.

Prior to joining the Patrick Administration, Reville chaired the Massachusetts State Board of Education, founded the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, co-founded the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE), chaired the Massachusetts Reform Review Commission, chaired the Massachusetts Commission on Time and Learning, and served as executive director of the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform, a national think tank which convened the U.S.'s leading researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to set the national standards agenda. Reville played a central role in MBAE's development of and advocacy for Massachusetts historic Education Reform Act of 1993. Reville has been a member of the HGSE faculty since 1997 and has served as director of the Education Policy and Management Program.

Reville's career, which combines research, policy, and practice, began with service as a VISTA volunteer/youth worker. He served as a teacher and principal of two urban, alternative high schools. Some years later, he founded a local education foundation which was part of the Public Education Network. He is a board member and adviser to a host of organizations, including Match Education, Boston After School and Beyond, Bellwether, BellXcel, City Year Boston, Harvard Medical School’s MEDscience and others. He is a frequent writer and speaker on education reform and policy issues.

Reville is the education commentator for WGBH’s Boston Public Radio. He frequently comments and contributes to Education Week and the Boston Globe and has recently written for the Hechinger Report, The 74 Million, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Times Education Supplement, Nature Human Behaviour, and the publication of Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He edited the book A Decade of Urban School Reform Persistence and Progress in the Boston Public Schools.

He holds a B.A. from Colorado College, an M.A. from Stanford University and five honorary doctorate degrees.