The Tufts Democrats recently held their 5th Annual "Issues of the Future" symposium on Public Education Reform.

Andrea Lowe, President of the Tufts Democrats delivers the welcome address.

Deborah Meier delivers the keynote speech.

Meier has spent more than four decades working in public education as a teacher, writer and public advocate. She began her teaching career as a kindergarten and Head Start teacher in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City schools. She was the founder and teacher-director of a network of highly successful public elementary schools in East Harlem. In 1985 she founded Central Park East Secondary School, a New York City public high school in which more than 90% of the entering students went on to college, mostly to 4-year schools. From 1997 to 2005 she was the founder and principal of the Mission Hill School a K-8 Boston Public Pilot school serving 180 children in the Roxbury community.

Kevin Brill, Larry Myatt and Alan Safran speak on "Different Education Models: Best Practices in Schooling". The panel is moderated by Will Ehrenfeld.

Kevin Brill studied at Manchester University in the United Kingdom, with a joint major in Math and Physics. Following completion of his undergraduate studies he went on to train as a science and math teacher at Manchester Metropolitan University. After teaching in London he came to Boston in 1994 and started working at Fenway High School. In his fourteen years with the school he has held a variety of positions, including Classroom Teacher, Director of Technology, and House Coordinator. In 2000 Kevin participated in the Principal Residency Network at Northeastern University and was appointed as the Associate Head of Fenway High School in 2001. 

Dr. Larry Myatt currently serves as Senior Fellow for Leadership and Education Ventures at Northeastern University Graduate School of Education. He is the former headmaster-on-assignment to the Office of High School Renewal in Boston Public Schools. He was the founder and long-time headmaster of Fenway High School, one of Boston’s first Pilot schools, and winner of numerous national and regional awards, including one of the U.S. Department of Education’s New American High Schools. Dr. Myatt was a co-founder of the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston, and the founder and co-director of the Greater Boston Principal Residency Network at Northeastern University, an apprenticeship-based leadership development and licensure program. He was a Thompson Fellow and National Faculty member for the Coalition of Essential Schools at Brown University and subsequently consulted with the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. In 2007 he was named the recipient of the Harry S. Levitan Education Prize for career achievement in the field, given by Brandeis University, his alma mater. Dr. Myatt also holds advanced degrees from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of numerous articles on leadership and small schools, and has led institutes and seminars for school leaders in a number of states and urban school districts. 

Alan Safran has served as the Executive Director of the MATCH Charter Public Schools in Boston, MA since July 2002. The MATCH School prepares inner-city Boston students to succeed in college, including those with no family history or expectations of college attendance. Prior to MATCH, Alan served 9 years (1993-2002) at the MA Department of Education in progressive senior management and leadership roles. These included Administrator for Public Affairs, Executive Assistant to the Commissioner, Chief of Staff, Deputy Commissioner for Administration and Policy, and Senior Associate Commissioner for Student Achievement. He holds a law degree from George Washington University (1987) and a B.A. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University (1980). He is certified as a Superintendent in MA; and is a member of the Bar in NY and MA. He and his wife, Dr. Dana Gelb Safran (who is Vice President of Performance Measurement and Improvement at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts) have three children—Alison, Michael and Caroline—and live in Newton, MA, where their children attend the Newton Public Schools.

Josh Biber, Tony Pierantozzi and Richard Stutman speak on "The Politics of Education Reform". The panel is moderated by Professor Steve Cohen of the Tufts Department of Education.

Josh Biber is the founding executive director of the Teach For America Greater Boston region, where he also served as director of new site development, laying the groundwork to establish this new site. A 2004 Teach For America Phoenix corps member, Josh was the regional recipient and national semi-finalist for the Sue Lehmann Excellence in Teaching Award after he led his fifth grade students to achieve two years of reading growth and more than 80 percent mastery of math content in each year of teaching. Josh first joined Teach For America staff in 2006 as a recruitment director, garnering 20 percent growth in his portfolio of universities, and 50 percent portfolio growth in 2007. Josh graduated with honors from Brown University and earned a M.Ed. from Arizona State University.

Tony Pierantozzi has been Superintendent of Somerville Public Schools since July 2005. He served as Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School District in South Yarmouth in 2001, and then served as Superintendent of the District from October 2001 to July 2005. Superintendent Pierantozzi has also served as Superintendent of Schools for Odessa-Montour Central School District in Odessa, New York. Previously, he was Principal of Boynton Middle School in Ithaca, New York, and Dean of Students for Barnstable Middle School in Marstons Mills, NY. Superintendent Pierantozzi holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Rutgers University, and a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration from Salem State College. He co-chairs the Urban Superintendents Network.

Richard Stutman has been president of the Boston Teachers Union since June 2003. Prior to that, he served as the union’s secondary field representative for 20 years after teaching math in middle and high school for ten. He also serves as a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers in Massachusetts as well as a vice president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. While teaching he worked part-time as a free lance writer for a variety of weekly and daily publications, including the Quincy Patriot Ledger and the Bay State Banner. He holds a diploma in Financial Planning from Boston University, is a graduate of UMass, and attended MIT as an undergraduate for three years. He is a graduate of Boston Latin School. His wife is a Speech and Language Pathologist in the Boston School system and their daughter, Sarah, 17, attends Boston Latin School.