Our Founder 

S. Paul Reville

S. Paul Reville founded the Rennie Center in 2002 and served as its president until 2008. On July 2, 2008, Paul was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to be the Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth. From August 2007 to July 2008, Paul served as the chair of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. Paul has a long history of educational leadership at the national, state and local levels. Paul is a senior lecturer on educational policy and politics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He serves as the chair of the advisory board for the National Center on Time & Learning, a newly established organization dedicated to expanding learning time to improve student achievement and enable a well-rounded education for all children. He is the former executive director of the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform, a Harvard-based, national education policy "think tank" which convened the nation's leading researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers.

In Massachusetts, Paul has been promoting education reform for the past twenty years. He was the founding executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE), an organization that provided key conceptual and political leadership for the development and passage of the historic Education Reform Act of 1993. From 1991-96, he served on the Massachusetts State Board of Education where among other assignments, he chaired the Massachusetts Commission on Time and Learning. From 1996-2003, Paul, at the Governor's request, chaired the Massachusetts Education Reform Review Commission, the state body that provided research and oversight for the state's implementation of education reform in the Commonwealth.

In 1985, Paul was the founding executive director of the Alliance for Education, a multi-service educational improvement organization serving Worcester and Central Massachusetts. He continues to play an active role in Worcester as chair of the Worcester Education Partnership's Steering Committee, a key partner in a Carnegie-sponsored initiative to transform Worcester's high schools. He began his educational career in 1971 as a practitioner: first as a VISTA volunteer/youth worker, then as a teacher and, ultimately, principal in two urban, alternative high-schools. Paul is a graduate of Colorado College and holds a Master's degree from Stanford University.  He has been a trustee of Wheelock College and the Nativity School of Worcester, and serves on numerous other boards and advisory committees. In 2005, he edited the book, "A Decade of Urban School Reform: Persistence and Progress in the Boston Public Schools." He is a frequent writer and speaker on school reform and educational policy issues. Finally, he has four children and two step-children who are committed to his continuing education.