There was a truism in Massachusetts education circles during the height of the pandemic that all the bad policy updates dropped on Fridays. Perhaps the Healey administration is planning to reverse this trend!
Governor-elect Healey announced this morning that she has chosen Dr. Patrick Tutwiler, former superintendent of the Lynn Public Schools, as her Secretary of Education.
I would feel that I am not doing my job as a blog on public education in Worcester if I didn't open with this:
Although his mother taught for 22 years, Tutwiler said he found a passion for teaching on his own.
"I started school thinking I wanted to get into business, but I realized that wasn’t me," said Tutwiler. "As I was reflecting on what to do with my life at Holy Cross, I got involved with a program called Raynor’s Readers, in which members of the (Crusaders basketball) team would read to students at Worcester public schools.
"In that program, while just sitting and reading with students, I realized the meaning and value of literacy, how powerful it could be and how it could open doors," said Tutwiler. "I guess, as they say, teaching was in my blood."
...from here, anywhere?
Given who the Governor is, I feel I should also mention that he was a forward on the Holy Cross basketball team while in college (he's class of 1997, and if someone doesn't work in that he's number 9 in career blocks at Holy Cross, someone isn't doing their background research!).
He has a master's degree from Harvard Graduation School of Education, his doctorate is from the Lynch School at BC. His dissertation is here; this recent Globe article shows the timeliness.
He taught history (and coached basketball) at Brighton High School in Boston; he then was dean at Westford Academy (which is the public high school for Westford; don't let the name fool you); then principal of Wayland High School. He was there for five years before he went back to Brighton High as headmaster (which is what Boston was calling principals).
He then went to Lynn as Deputy Superintendent, which he served as for three years before the Lynn School Committee unanimously appointed him superintendent in 2018 after the retirement of Cathy Latham.
You most recently probably saw him testifying before the Board of Ed in April as part of the panel the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents put together to talk about; the full testimony is here. I want to note two things about his testimony:
- He started by talking about this year being the most challenging year he's ever faced as an educator. If you are around educators at all, that is the common sentiment; you'll hear it from teachers, from principals, from anyone in schools, as well as from administration. That's channeling the actual feelings of the ground level straight to the Board. That's powerful.
- What does he lead with? Mental health, and not just for students, but for staff.
And this, overall, is my sense--let me note that I do not know him personally--of Dr. Tutwiler. He gets it. He's an educator at heart.
And he has decades of creditability from working in public districts, largely URBAN districts, in Massachusetts.
The Lynn Public Schools he became superintendent of, for example, looked
like this (this is before he became superintendent; without a change in the foundation budget, it only got worse):
and this:
This isn't someone under illusions under what running a school district without budgetary reform has been like. And Lynn even earlier this year had to scramble to
meet net school spending.
I am absolutely certain we're going to hear "but the Barr Foundation!" as an objection. First, maybe I'm getting old, but the concerns I've seen on Barr don't seem to be borne out by much beyond "it's a foundation." I'd rather not have private foundations determining research, experimentation, and good thinking, too, but in the meantime, let's judge on what they're actually doing, please?
Tutwiler has been there since August, which means (and I don't say this disparagingly), there hasn't really been much in terms of that.
And on the other hand, we have decades of, for example,
this:
Just the mere fact that the superintendent of the state’s fifth-largest school district was in the building affirmed the hands-on, be-there approach he has brought to Lynn’s top administrative position in his first year.
That isn't about the ties: it's about the relationship with staff and students.
I'm hopeful today.
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