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Currently a professor of practice at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, Tom Payzant has been around the educational block. He has served as an Assistant Secretary of Education under President Clinton, and as superintendent of schools in Boston, San Diego, Oklahoma City, Eugene (Oregon), and Springfield (Pennsylvania). In Boston, he was credited with narrowing achievement gaps and presiding over the largest improvement in mathematics scores of any major urban district participating in the National Assessment of Education Progress Trial Urban District Assessment. He has received many leadership awards, including Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year, and published extensively, promoting academic reforms to both professional educators and policymakers. Recently, he also served as co-chair of the task force that released a statement promoting "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education."

Like his co-chairs Pedro Noguera (whom we interviewed on Monday) and Helen Ladd (interview forthcoming), Payzant recently took some time to talk to Public School Insights about the statement and its significance for public school reform.

Without backing down on the importance of aggressive school improvement strategies - and Payzant has certainly earned his bona fides as a school reformer - he shared his conviction that all sectors of society must work together to ensure that America's most vulnerable children - those growing up in poverty - have access to the same opportunities more advantaged children enjoy as a matter of course.

You can listen to highlights from our interview here (5 minutes)

Or check out the transcript below:

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: What, in your view, is the significance of the task force's statement?

PAYZANT: I think it's primarily to bring a focus to the challenge of how we do a much better job in general in providing educational opportunities, particularly for our disadvantaged children who are growing up in poverty and need extra kinds of help and support that we are not yet able to provide. That is in no way taking away the responsibility of the schools to play a major role in making that happen. It simply says that there needs to be a partnership with other agencies and systems that can provide support in the area of health and social service that are needed to give children growing up in poverty the same advantages that middle class and other children have.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Others have seen this statement as a repudiation of No Child Left Behind. Would you agree that that's the case?

PAYZANT: It's not that at all. The underlying policy direction to No Child Left Behind is solid, in that it is grounded in standards-based reform, which is a radical idea based on the notion that all children should have the kind of support, teaching, and learning opportunities that will enable them to reach the same high standards that we used to expect only select groups of students to meet. And that it's the obligation of the schools to help that happen.

But there's also the recognition that the schools can't do the whole job and this bold statement is, "Let's, for once, put the other parts of the equation together so that the powerful work and the accountability in the schools will be supported by powerful work and accountability to provide the other kind of supports that children who are faced with growing up in poverty should have."

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Some critics of the statement have claimed that your conclusions about current test-based accountability systems suggest you've actually gone soft on accountability.

PAYZANT: There's no backing away from the accountability piece at all. It's taking a hard look at what is good about the current accountability system and making adjustments in it. What we're saying in this statement is that it's not only accountability that's driven by numbers which are important, but [that] you don't get the high student achievement without improving the quality of instruction and giving teachers the support that they need to improve. So there are qualitative kinds of assessments that have to be added to the accountability system.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: The statement is also calling for partnerships to help provide a better coordinated package of services to, primarily, students in poverty. Some people have criticized the statement because they have seen it as atomistic, as a sort of accretion of different discrete programs. How would you respond to that?

PAYZANT: Let's start with the proposal that is well-grounded in research that suggests the importance of the first five years of a child's life. Many children of poverty come to school with a vocabulary that is significantly smaller than middle class children do. Why shouldn't children be given the kind of supports that are needed to, at five years of age, be at the same place that more advantaged children are, so that the gap will be closed at five?

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: So you're talking about early childhood education. Is there any assurance that the task force could provide that these early childhood education programs be of the highest quality, since there's been a lot of debate about quality of early childhood and how much good it actually can do?

PAYZANT: This is a fair question, because it's one thing to set direction and policy, but in so doing there has to be a reality check in terms of what it will take to execute the policy as intended. And that means that it will require a lot of support for the people who are going to be engaged in the work. This is true with respect to all of education.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: It sounds like the reform strategies you're using in K-12 are equally applicable to pre-K in many cases. So you're not look at these as separate systems.

PAYZANT: No, not at all. But if there is a lot done in the first five years of a child's life, then the gap won't be there and the catch-up won't have to begin.