Ed. Note: During August, Fig City News conducted interviews with each of the 10 School Committee candidates who are running in competitive elections. This notice was sent to all candidates prior to the interviews. All interviews were completed before any were published.
Your website has various biographical items on it. Could you clarify what you’re up to right now?
I have a full-time job as a doctoral candidate at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, in the Doctor of Education Leadership Program. It historically trains folks to become superintendents for large urban systems and has evolved into a combination of practice and research elements that [train for] roles that are influential in education in the future.
I also do work supporting the superintendent in Arlington as a superintendent fellow, which is an advisor/apprentice. It helps her work through different cross-department or cross divisional challenges. Those are my two roles at the moment.
Part of the requirements for the doctorate program are to additionally work in the community and in your case, you’re doing that in Arlington?
Correct. Those are highly recommended options. You can do a fellowship, and I chose to do that at Arlington Public Schools. I started last fall, continued through the summer and now, probably until the balance of this year.
Do you write a thesis for your doctorate?
We do what’s called a capstone project. It’s a three-year program, with the first two years fundamental coursework and some teaching, and the third year, roughly nine months in field practice and research, and then you author your capstone writeup that essentially gets defended, like you would for a PhD dissertation.
Any thoughts on what within education you’re interested in, that you might write about?
I’m still exploring, but one of the areas I’m curious about: I had helped the health insurance industry in my previous career to switch over a value-based billing model, so one of the things I was curious about because of my experience at HMH [K-12 education materials company] was can we bring a value-based building model into the education sector? One of the challenges is you have [many] providers that are saying they have great solutions, but unless you implement them with fidelity, they may not work. Then educators say if your solution were more effective and easier to understand, we may be better at it. Complex institutional systems make outcomes very hard to drive and get reinforced through [the product’s solution]. So that’s an exploration. I’m seeing if there’s a potential path to combine a provider, a school district, and maybe a third party validator of some kind, and see if the value-based model could work within the K-12 ecosystem.
Could you clarify the connection between insurance products and the school system?
In the insurance area, we had doctors that were perhaps incentivized in the old days to order more tests than were necessary for the patient. So insurance companies and other folks were beginning to switch to more value-based billing, which is dependent on patient outcomes.
So what I was trying out is other ways to take, for example, curriculum companies, assessment companies, professional development companies, and say we’re going to make a contingent part of your fee structure based on the outcome. The problem is what typically happens is it’s almost like the defense industry: You have these big multi-year contracts.
But there wasn’t necessarily, in the old days, the incentives to keep making sure that the product is fully updated, because you just basically sell a giant textbook. Now it’s more technology, it’s not purely just a textbook. There’s still an opportunity to say “how do we make sure that you’re not only selling to a school, but you’re making sure they’re successful, can you align it?” So that [we’re not saying] “I gave you the best possible curriculum, but if you guys didn’t get good [results], that’s your problem not mine.” We’re all going to be invested in this, so that we all want to make sure that the outcome is truly manifest. It’s a tricky one.
You mentioned HMH, that’s on your website. It says it’s Ed Tech. What did that company do? What were you doing there?
The company is actually the largest K-12 education technology company in the United States. HMH continues to evolve core curriculum, supplemental curriculum, intervention curriculum, as well as assessment and professional development services. I first was hired to help them create a corporate strategy department, and bridge more into the digital era, and then gradually, I shifted over into a division that focused on intervention and supplemental solutions. I started to get very interested in the kids who were sometimes two or three grade levels behind.
What did the company sell? Software, a download, or something else?
It’s a platform. There are both digital and print options for curriculum solutions. It could be for interim assessments, professional developments, things like coaching that is synchronous to live expert coaching that’s out there. Part of my role was thinking about how is the industry evolving and who are the key players. And then going to different classrooms across the entire United States to understand how are they actually using all these different solutions, both ours and others. I would go back to our team and say, “Hey, by the way, this isn’t working, we need to refine this,” or one additional market research we need to do to is make sure that what we’re developing is actually meeting the requirements of those students, our customers, or districts.
How would you respond to someone who hears what you just said and reacts by saying, you have a background and interest in national education issues, you’re doing some work in Arlington, going to graduate school for this degree. Why not go work for a national education policy outfit or become a superintendent? Why limit yourself to Newton School Committee?
I actually received my superintendent’s license from Massachusetts, not long ago. I could go down that path if I choose. Ironically, I would argue that going for a position in School Committee makes it harder to become a superintendent. Some people say it’s just the way to promote yourself for that, it’s actually the opposite: By forcing yourself to be more political, you have to take positions that are right for the community, that may make it harder for me to get a position down the road. I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. You can still be involved with our local community and also serve in a capacity that’s broader down the road.
I half-jokingly said years ago that a longtime career goal would have been to become a U.S. Secretary of Education, before the Trump administration changed their approach to the department.
What’s a general example of what you just said, a School Committee member having to say something that could then be a negative if they’re interviewing for a superintendent job?
Some of this narrative in the broader dialog has been oversimplified into a union versus non-union kind of perspectives. And the truth is, even at Arlington, we get along very well with our union. Those are conversations we have very smoothly because there’s good relationships that have been built for a while. Those are the same kind of things you could continue to do elsewhere, but people could say because he’s running against somebody who’s tied or been involved with the MTA union in the past, he must be the anti-union person, and that narrative will follow you, which could make it harder in the future even though it may not be a fair reflection.
So not necessarily a potential policy stance you’d have to take on the School Committee, but more the public atmosphere around running a campaign?
Correct. And even something like multi-level classrooms, there might be places where multi-level classrooms are a good thing, I just don’t think they’ll work well in Newton. Again, those are positions you are compelled, rightfully, to take if you’re a School Committee member, but I think a lot of superintendents prefer to be a little more neutral and not put themselves firmly in one camp versus the other.
You just mentioned multi-level classes. Given your background, why specifically do you have concerns about it?
I did a literature review. I was curious to see what academic literature was saying and to understand the practice. I talked to educators to understand their perspective and talked to a lot of friends who either have kids that just recently graduated or are going through it. The biggest issue with multi-level, especially the way we’ve done it in math and science – with ELA I’m maybe more willing to consider options – but generally not in favor of multi-level. It’s not helping the kids who are at the very top of proficiency. They’re saying they’re essentially bored or not getting stretched enough, and equally importantly, if not more importantly, the kids for whom this is intended to improve their performance, you have people like Ryan Normandin [former teacher at Newton South High School], who are saying it’s actually repressing their willingness to speak up in the classroom. I also heard that from other current students and graduates.
In some ways, it might be arguably worse than the approach prior to it. I’m not a big fan. To be clear, there are ways to tackle these achievement gaps, the original purpose for which we were implementing multilevel classrooms, but perhaps in a little bit of a different way to achieve the standard that we need to get back to, that Newton used to be well known for.
The last thing you said – that we could use these concepts and implement them in a different way than multi-level. What are some potential ways?
Sorry, I forgot to mention one thing, a lot of the literature and research that exists on multi-level is very heavy in ELA. There isn’t quite as much in math and science, and a lot of the research that I’ve seen in the math and science often talks about either other countries, or other setups that don’t necessarily have the diversity of abilities and skills that we see not only Newton, but especially after COVID in Newton. So maybe it was a good theory, pre-COVID, but the realities of today are very different, and also the teachers, as they’ve said, not being adequately trained. It’s leading to a mess that I don’t want to see extend down to middle school or elementary.
In terms of alternatives, one thing that I would like to explore, and Dr. Nolin alluded to it in the August School Committee retreat, is sometimes called automatic enrollment, or sometimes called opt-out policies. I’m a big fan of this concept. I’ve seen them work in some other districts outside of Massachusetts, but the basic premise is you would have some agreed-upon objective standard like a summative test, sometimes it would be like MCAS, that says, if you were at a certain degree of proficiency or mastery of the subject matter at the end of the year, then the next year you would automatically be enrolled into the higher- level class. The student would have the option if they really wanted to, but you would kind of automatically assume they were going to be ready and capable.. The reason for that is because research shows a lot of [these students] tend to be disproportionately black, brown, or have lower social economic status students.
Some of them may not have necessarily a role model or parent that knows how to advocate firmly for being placed in that [higher level] class, or they may feel they’ve been tracked in a lower program and it would be disruptive to speak up. We actually know for most of the kids, if they’re given what we call something in the zone of approximate development, something with a little stretch but not too much, they will often rise to meet that. By automatically enrolling them, you’re signaling to them that we have faith in you. That little push is sometimes all it takes..
But at the same time, you have to maintain that standard. You want to have the input of the teachers who taught them before, but we’ve seen that even with some of the best teachers in the world with well intentions, there’s implicit bias that comes out that if you know a student has historically been on a lower level, it’s hard to kick that out of your mind. So any kind of system that allows you to establish one objective standard, and regardless of what race, sex, gender, or background you have, if you meet that qualification, we’re going to automatically enroll you, that tends to close achievement gaps over time.
Is it scientifically accurate to take national studies of black and brown students and extrapolate that to decisions around Newton’s black and brown students?
Not necessarily, because you look at the data in terms of how many black and brown students we have in Newton. Metco is an element of it, and that’s a different dynamic than if you’re looking at Harlem or one of the areas of Brooklyn that I’m coaching right now. You have to localize them. The national studies give you general direction, but you have to consider the local context. That’s why multi-level might seem like a great idea in some areas, but from a Newton perspective, it doesn’t quite line up.
What were your views on the budget process this past spring, and if you’re elected, going forward?
I think this is one of three differentiators between myself and my my opponent. What I learned from watching last year’s occurrences – and I attended almost every School Committee meeting, either virtually or in person – Number one, I was a proponent of Level Services Plus; I advocated for that. I think Chris [Brezski] and others were on the right track to at least start that dialogue and push the Mayor a little bit more on that part.
It’s almost like we have a patient with a broken leg who’s bleeding, and we needed to tap into the Education Stabilization Fund (‘ESF’) to stop the bleeding a little bit, get to Level Services Plus, so we have next year to get to the fundamental issue. But right now, I felt like, with all due respect to the Mayor, it was almost like we were saying, “We’re not going to worry about the broken bone, and we’re not gonna stop the bleeding at the same time.”
The School Committee can vote for a higher budget like they did this past year, but at the end of the day, the Mayor really controls the path. You need to build relationships with the City Council to exert as much political pressure as possible to get what you need. I made a concentrated effort early on to get as many connections to the City Councillors as possible, or who potentially could be the City Councilors this coming year, because I realized it was better when the School Committee and the City Councilors were sharing information.
To the my best my knowledge today, unless anything has changed, of every City Council that’s made an endorsement in my race, all of them have endorsed me. I made it a priority after talking with fellow Newtonians to go speak with every single single City Council that’d be willing to talk. I’d ask, “What’s your position? What’s your understanding of what this is? and can you back this sort of priority, not necessarily immediately, but gradually getting closer to a Thrive budget? And if we need to, collectively putting pressure on whoever the Mayor is to move in that direction?
I think if you don’t build those relationships, it’s very hard at the end of the day to actually get much done. It’s the City Council who has to be involved in approving that budget.
As it relates to City governance, the Mayor sets the funding, and the City Council can’t increase that funding. So what are your connections going to do?
They can’t necessarily increase, that’s [City] charter driven, but they can decrease, and there’s levers. Depending how much hardball they want to play, they can choose to decrease other areas that could send a message, at least in a negotiation. The more voices there are of elected officials that are all saying the same thing, I think creates more political pressure for a Mayor .
Barring a charter change, nothing’s going to change that. What you have to do is to make the voice of everybody else as consistent and aligned as possible, and you start those dialogues now.
Compensation is by far the single biggest component of the budget. The next School Committee will have to negotiate the next NTA contract. What were your experiences during the strike, and if you’re elected, how would those inform how you’ll approach the next contract?
Some of the requests around COLA increases seemed rather reasonable. I think the general principle argument about aides not being paid enough – $20,000 I think, at that particular point in time; that is a tough job to be paid so little. I was sympathetic in the very beginning, and then by Day 5, pretty much every single neighbor that I knew of was already getting very frustrated.
Many people came to me and said “can you get involved?” A big break point, at least in my neighborhood, was hearing folks say five days of kids out of school is really bad. By Day 11, pretty much every single person I knew was fed up with the whole process. It was making life very difficult for families to juggle their responsibilities, both at home, watching the kids, and their jobs at their workplaces. Things might have been well intended, but the process by which it was done really was not good. Regardless of the legality of it, the message was conveyed, and I have disagreements with some folks who felt like, “11 days was the only way that that message could have gotten delivered.” As I understand it, the COLA offers that were given to units A, B, C, D, and I think E, were largely the same at the end of the negotiations as they were in mid December. There was very little change. So it makes you wonder why some are saying so much benefit that came from the strike. Was it really that beneficial and more importantly, what was the cost?
I did have great conversations. There were teachers that came over from South, I live about five minutes away by walking. I was sympathetic to the general ideas, but the way in which [the strike] went, a lot of people had issues with, and frankly, it really bothered me.
If you’re elected, how does that inform how you’ll think about the next contract?
My recollection is we were spending somewhere in the ballpark of $34 million for special education instruction, and transportation is another $6 million or so. That’s one of our attractive points that many people come to NPS for. But we have a challenge because, in my opinion, we haven’t necessarily gone to the state and made a better argument for how the Newton of the past, when they were doing circuit breaker formulas and Chapter 70 funding adjustments, is not the Newton of today. We have a much more complex group of kids to serve now.
There might be an opportunity in the first year to work with whoever’s elected, to work with the union, the School Committee, City Councillors, the Mayor, and our two relatively new state reps, and ask if we get to the State House and advocate for revision of the circuit breaker, some adjustments so we’ll get a better reflection of our special education needs. In words, if we’re getting only 47 cents on the dollar for transportation, can we increase that a little bit?
That’s something that hopefully everybody should be incentivized to do, regardless of which position on the strike they took. If we are able to push together, then we have hopefully developed a constructive relationship, that can then be parlayed into our collective bargaining agreement discussions in the second year of this term. It’s showing good faith in finding something that we can all strive for, to build those relationships. Though at the end of the day, it’s the union’s decision. If they want to strike, they can strike.
There’s nothing that technically stops them from physically going on strike. There’s laws and penalties, but if they choose to do so, they can. All we can do at this point is to show good faith in coming to the table earlier. We won’t play as many games, and we’re going to show that we are going to try to work together. You can be as technically proficient as you want, but if those relationships aren’t built well, nothing matters.
Last spring, based on public memos, the district reorganized the DEI office, folded it into the HR Department, and based on public memos re-oriented its duties largely to staff-facing functions. Do you agree with those changes and what do you see as the role of DEI going forward in NPS?
There’s the idealist in me, and there’s a realist of me. The idealist in me is not totally thrown by this Trumpian interpretation of what the purpose of DEI was for, and it’s unfortunate that it has had to result in some wrestling with how do you still achieve equitable outcomes?
The realist says this is something that may have implications for things down the road, like Title I funding potentially. The Individual Disabilities Education Act (IEDA) funding, and not only those shouldn’t be tied together, but everything seems to be a fair game in this national administration. So it’s probably the practical choice for the time that we’re in, but not the ideal. Are we fundamentally giving, regardless of whether it’s called DEI or something else, every child the opportunity to academically stretch as much as they are capable of doing?
If that means, in some cases, that some folks are going to need more support, and that happens to correlate with folks from a particular background, great, fantastic, no problem. It doesn’t have to be necessarily driven by that identity element first, but we don’t want to forget that significant practices can exist, that can benefit one group of people more than others.
There is a lot of value to doing things like culturally relevant pedagogy. Things that take into account some degree of ethnic studies, because there is some research that suggests that kids who are given opportunities to find curriculum that relates to their background, they tend to do better.
Is there anything that we didn’t cover you’d like to convey to our readers?
I think the biggest one is between 2019 and 2023, there was about a thousand-student drop in the enrollment. That’s a significant thing, post-COVID, post strike, and now with this budget battle. And you see manifestations of these issues, like, even with the Ward-Underwood debate, right? Some folks are saying there’s so much instability in how NPS is operating. It’s hard to convince folks who have the wherewithal and the will to stay in the system not exit to either private or parochial. That’s going to be a big problem down the road, if that continues to be the case, where we have more and more division of who ends up staying within NPS versus who left.
How do we begin to establish trust and reverse that outflow? We need fewer cases where people complete their exit saying, “My older child is gonna continue, but my younger child wasn’t as far along, so they’re gonna leave the system.”
I also think maintaining good special education services, but at the same time, speak as a community about what exactly that should look like, what it could look like in other forms, like this MTSS. I think there’s a lot of opportunity in there. If we can get the student to the point where they’re able to get back into the general education classroom without an aide earlier on, all the better. We should be aiming for that. I think some people fear that that loss of an aide will mean that this child will have a worse experience, when the reality is they might do better, get better organizational skills, but they don’t have to let somebody else essentially do the marginal coursework for them. We have to think about this intervention approach carefully over the next few years.
