GOV. MAURA HEALEY, who vowed last year in her campaign launch to “continue with what’s working and fix what’s not” if elected, has decided the existing leadership of the state education board is working just fine. Healey’s office confirmed Tuesday night that she has asked Katherine Craven to remain chair of the 11-member board responsible for K-12 education policy in the state.

“Katherine Craven has dedicated her career to serving Massachusetts students, educators and their families, and she has provided strong leadership as chair of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education,” Healey said in a statement. 

The move will please those who have supported the board’s general approach to education policy, but will be a disappointment to some teachers union leaders, who were hoping the election of a Democratic governor would bring a clean break with policies on everything from testing to charter schools that unions have waged battles against. 

Craven, highly respected and widely known across the state from a career that has included top posts in the State House and at two public education building authorities, has served on the board since 2014. 

“She’s somebody that everyone has high regard for, so I just see it as a good move for continuity with someone who is respected on all sides,” said Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. 

That high regard, however, does not necessarily extend to the state’s largest teachers union. 

Last August, when the education board voted to raise the minimum passing score on the 10th grade MCAS test, which is a high school graduation requirement, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association delivered a scathing rebuke to the board in public testimony. 

Max Page said the board was “obsessed with a test invented some 20 years ago and repeatedly shown to do little more than prove the wealth of a student and the community where it is taken.” Addressing board members, he said opponents of the state’s graduation test would stay committed to ending its use “until each of you who continue to reinforce this high-stakes testing regime have moved on to other places and we have replaced you with other people who will replace this two decades-long travesty.” 

Last week, Page also expressed disappointment with Craven’s support for a Worcester charter school application, which the board approved two weeks ago by a 7-4 vote. “I think it would be better to have someone who thinks differently,” he said of the board chair. 

Craven was appointed to the board by then-Gov. Deval Patrick. In 2019, then-Gov. Charlie Baker tapped her to chair the board. 

Members of the education board are appointed by the governor. All but one of them serve staggered five-year terms that don’t align, by design, with the governor’s term in order to give the panel a degree of independence. However, the governor does appoint the board chair, and one of the 11 seats is “coterminous” with the governor’s, giving him or her the ability to bring on a new board member and appoint them chair. 

Baker used that authority after taking office in 2015 to name former tech executive Paul Sagan to the board and appoint him its chairman. Sagan replaced Margaret McKenna, who had been named chair by Patrick. Healey, who has followed Baker’s centrist tack on some issues, has concluded that Craven is the right one to continue leading the board. 

“I appreciate the governor’s confidence in me, and it’s an honor to serve on the board,” said Craven, whose term runs until June 2024. 

Craven brings a wealth of education and public sector experience to the role. She was a top staffer in the House Ways and Means Committee and Speaker’s office on Beacon Hill and went on to direct the Massachusetts School Building Authority and the University of Massachusetts Building Authority. She is currently chief financial officer at Babson College. 

Craven said she doesn’t bring a “base ideology” to the board. Craven said her approach is informed by both background in education policy and finance issues and by her role as the mother of five children, aged 5 to 23, including a 19-year-old son with Down syndrome. 

“I come at this as someone who has worked on education budgets and school building budgets,” she said. “But I’m also the mom of five kids and I come at it personally. I think public education in Massachusetts is the best in the country, but we have room to go with subgroups that haven’t had that same success.” 

MICHAEL JONAS

FROM COMMONWEALTH

DPU gets makeover: The Healey administration appoints two new commissioners to the Department of Public Utilities, one a law school professor from West Virginia University and the other a vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation. The appointments signal a new direction of the agency which regulates gas and electric utilities, rideshare companies, and the MBTA. Read more.

Here we go: Sports betting opens with a bang in Massachusetts, with 400,000 new accounts and 8 million transactions in three days. Read more.

OPINION

Rent stabilization strategy: Alex Bloom of SKDK, a Democratic consulting firm, details a strategy for getting Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s rent control stabilization policy through Beacon Hill. Read more.

No to Drinks to Go: Heidi Heilman of of the Massachusetts Addiction Prevention Alliance urges lawmakers not to make the Drinks to Go COVID-era policy permanent. Read more.

FROM AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

Two bills this term would target gender and racial wage gaps, with legislators claiming they could close the wage gap by 2030 while remaining “business friendly (Worcester Telegram)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

Worcester City Council meetings have become something of a spectacle. (GBH)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

A federal court case and FDA ruling could limit access to medical abortions in Massachusetts, forcing more women to undergo surgical procedures to terminate a pregnancy. (Boston Globe) 

An orthopedic surgeon at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital is the target of a number of complaints by prison inmates who say their care was substandard. (GBH)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

Incidents of white supremacy propaganda are at an all-time high in the United States and in Massachusetts, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League. (Gloucester Times)

ELECTIONS

Newton voters rejected a Proposition 2½ property tax override but did approve two “debt exclusion” measures to rebuild two elementary schools. (Boston Globe) 

Candidates are scarce and contested races a rarity in the upcoming Lenox municipal elections. (Berkshire Eagle)

EDUCATION

The Saugus superintendent of schools says through her lawyer that she hasn’t been given a reason for why she was placed on paid administrative leave in January. At the time, officials described it as a non-disciplinary personal matter. (Daily Item)

A student-run, non-binding vote at Wellesley College supports admission of transgender men and nonbinary people. School officials say they want the school to remain a women’s college. (WBUR)

ARTS/CULTURE

Kenneth Griffith was named the new musical director of the Boston Children’s Chorus. (Boston Globe) 

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

The EPA proposes regulations on six “forever chemicals” in drinking water. (WBUR)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

Three Boston police officers are fired over anti-vax, pro-insurrection statements. (Associated Press)

The Cape & Islands district attorney, Robert Galibois, has been cited for “failure to report a motor vehicle crash” following a February 23 collision with a car in Barnstable. (Boston Herald) 

MEDIA

Dan Kennedy weighs in the Supreme Judicial Court’s civility decision. (Media Nation)