STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER Jeff Riley, who often sought to find common ground in the polarized world of education debates and steered schools through the unprecedented COVID crisis that shuttered classrooms across the state, will leave his post next month after six years as the state’s top official overseeing K-12 schools.
Riley, 53, plans to step down on March 15, according to a letter he delivered to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. He recommended that deputy commissioner Russell Johnston be named acting commissioner while a search for a permanent replacement is carried out.
In his letter, Riley said the obligations he has to his aging parents require a level of commitment that “is not compatible with the demands of the commissioner’s job.” He also said initiatives such as the state’s new multi-year literacy program aimed at younger learners require a commissioner “who can commit on an all-in basis for at least another five years, and I simply cannot do that.”
Gov. Maura Healey praised Riley’s work leading the state’s K-12 system, especially during the COVID pandemic.
“We’re grateful for Commissioner Riley’s leadership to make sure Massachusetts continues to have the greatest schools in the country and to support our incredible students and educators every step of the way, particularly through the challenging years of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Healey said in a statement.
“Massachusetts is seen as a leader in education in the country,” US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Commissioner Riley, one of our longest tenured state education chiefs, has cemented that reputation.”
A former Boston school principal and administrator who went on to serve as the state-appointed receiver for the troubled Lawrence Public Schools, Riley implemented initiatives as commissioner to diversify the state’s teaching workforce, expanded Early College programs, successfully pushed for universal free meal programs at schools, and oversaw the first first update in 25 years to state curriculum guidelines for sex education.
He used a grant program to prod districts to adopt evidence-based reading curriculum in the face of jarring evidence that more than half of Massachusetts third grade students are not reading at grade level, a critical benchmark of long-term academic success. Last month, Healey announced a multi-year initiative that builds on that work, proposing $30 million in her 2025 budget proposal for a new Literacy Launch initiative.
In early 2020, Riley issued a scathing report on academic instruction and facilities in the Boston Public Schools, but stopped short of recommending state receivership and instead got the city to agree to an improvement plan that the state continues to monitor.
By far Riley’s most trying chapter came during the COVID school shutdowns. He faced the challenge of overseeing K-12 education during a global pandemic, with schools closing their doors in March 2020 and districts scrambling to figure out ways to deliver remote instruction online. The pandemic shutdowns led to widespread learning losses, which districts have yet to recover from.
Riley argued forcefully for schools to reopen in the spring of 2021, pointing to evidence that it was safe to do so and emphasizing that lower-income students were being hurt the most by school closures. In March 2021, over the strong objections of teacher unions, Riley ordered all schools in the state to reopen over the next two months.
“The time is now to bring our kids back to school,” Riley said at the time. Families were given the option to have their child continue with remote learning.
Early in his tenure as commissioner, Riley launched a pilot program to support a handful of districts in what he termed “deeper learning,” ways to ensure a more layered understanding of material beyond what was needed to pass standardized tests.
He was a strong supporter of MCAS and rigorous accountability measures, but also voiced concern that those systems have led schools to overemphasize testing and crowded out art, music, and other subjects that make for a rounded educational experience, especially in districts serving lots of low-income students.
“We’ve done 25 years of education reform, we’ve built a solid foundation, but we haven’t fixed all the problems,” Riley said in 2019 when he announced the effort. “We’re looking to create a network of districts and schools and teachers that will help innovate what’s next, a white space to try out new ideas.”
Riley got his start as a Teach for America instructor in Baltimore. He went on to serve in various roles in the Boston Public Schools, including middle school principal and a district administrative post, before being named receiver for the Lawrence schools in 2012.
His work in Lawrence, a district taken over by the state because of chronically low student achievement and corruption that reached into the superintendent’s office, gained national attention.
Although the receivership gave him wide power to void many aspects of existing union contracts and dismiss staff, he replaced most of the principals in Lawrence, but only a small share of teachers. Riley argued that poor leadership in the central office and at individual schools, not ineffective classroom teachers, was the overriding problem in the schools.
“You can’t fire your way to results,” he said at the time. “I’m not sure that Lawrence teachers have been given a broad framework of what good teaching looks like and what the expectations are.”
He gave new principals who showed strong leadership and results the autonomy to make decisions that best served their schools, and brought in charter school organizations to run two schools as part of the district turnaround effort.
He also sought to tap best practices that had shown results in urban schools with low-income students, bringing in an intensive tutoring program developed by a Boston charter high school, and setting up “acceleration academies” during school vacation weeks that gave extra instruction to students who were struggling the most academically.
Lawrence saw huge achievement gains in his early years there and drew widespread attention from education leaders eager for models that could close achievement gaps. Scores subsequently leveled off, however, underscoring the challenge of closing achievement gaps in a high-poverty population with a large share of English language learners.
At the time of Riley’s 2018 appointment as state commissioner, former state education secretary Paul Reville described him as a proven education leader with on-the-ground experience. “Jeff’s a hands-on, practical school guy,” Reville said. “He’s got a broad portfolio of experience, a track record of success, and a real commitment to kids and to equity.”
Riley said he occupied the “radical center” in the battles that have raged over issues like standardized testing and charter schools. “There are zealots on either side,” he said in 2012 about the divide between district and charter schools. Riley professed to be agnostic on which governance structure works best. “I just want good schools,” he said.
That effort to bridge the divide in education debates didn’t always succeed.
In 2019, Riley crafted a novel plan to address fierce opposition from city leaders and teacher unions to plans for a major expansion of a New Bedford charter school.
Riley proposed allowing the school to add only about a third of the number of new seats it was seeking. In return, the city would let it have a shuttered former elementary school building and the charter school would only enroll students from the surrounding neighborhood, effectively serving as the neighborhood school. The unique district-charter partnership had the support of New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, a charter school opponent, who said it would be better for the city’s schools and finances than the much larger charter school the state was otherwise poised to approve.
“In a time of great polarization, it’s heartening to see folks come together and work on behalf of who matters most, I hope, to all of us, which is our students,” Riley said when he unveiled the proposal.
The agreement fell apart, however, when charter school opponents killed a home-rule petition in the Legislature that was necessary to authorize the plan. The state then approved the much larger expansion of the charter school.
More recently, Riley faced pushback from the state education board when he sought to give added encouragement to districts that have worked to reduce chronic absenteeism rates that skyrocketed during the pandemic. Last month, the board voted down his proposal to increase the weight assigned to reducing absenteeism rates in calculating districts’ progress in meeting state improvement targets.
The education commissioner is chosen by the 11-member state education board, whose members are appointed by the governor but serve staggered terms that overlap with changes in administration. The governor’s education secretary, who is a member of the board, must ratify any choice of the board.
The structure was designed to give the education department a degree of independence from the executive branch, though the commissioner often works closely with the governor. Riley was appointed in 2018 by a board led by appointees of then-Gov. Charlie Baker, who was a big fan of his work leading the schools in Lawrence.
Along with Healey’s selection of an education secretary, Patrick Tutwiler, the governor will now have a chance to further shape education policy with the choice of a new commissioner.
Healey has embraced the push for evidence-based reading curriculum with her recent budget proposal. And she has declared her opposition to legislation that would legalize teacher strikes in the state.
But the governor has not yet proposed any broad K-12 reforms or staked out a position on other contentious issues. Those include whether the state should end the 10th grade MCAS graduation requirement that has been in place for two decades, a change the state’s largest teachers union is aiming to bring to voters through a statewide ballot question this fall. Three districts – Lawrence, Holyoke, and Southbridge — also remain in state receivership, with leaders in the communities clamoring for a return to local control.
Riley said his decades of work in education were driven by an early lesson from his parents, updated based on his experience in schools.
“From an early age, my parents instilled in me the belief that anyone can do anything in this country if they just worked hard enough,” Riley said in a statement. “I came to realize, however, that only works if all kids start in the same place. In my 30-plus years in education, I have strived to level the playing field to give all children equal opportunities to achieve.”
When he took control of the Lawrence schools, Riley, who sports a goatee and a smooth pate, brought some perspective – and levity – to his predisposition to try to bring together warring sides in education.
“I’m either in the sweet spot or the cross hairs,” he said. “You have people unhappy on both sides. I hope I don’t lose my hair.”