Mr. Right

Jim Peyser aims to put a kinder, gentler face on education reform. Can he push his conservative vision past hostile critics?

by Michael Crowley

TALKING POLITICS

What we are witnessing in American politics today is the Era of Education. With politicians and the public routinely identifying education as their top priority, an education-reform movement is sweeping the country, putting into practice ideas once thought to be radical and scaring the bejesus out of teachers unions and old-guard liberals.

Few states have been revamping their public-school systems as vigorously as Massachusetts, where a multibillion-dollar education-reform effort has fueled a passionate debate about what's wrong with our schools and what might make them better.

That debate may be about to intensify further still. Last month, Governor Paul Cellucci sent a new general to the front lines of the education-reform war. He is state Board of Education chairman Jim Peyser.

As the new face of education policy in Massachusetts, Peyser wants to change the way you think about the public schools. He sees the school system as a "monopoly" that begs for competitive market forces. He uses the vocabulary of boardrooms -- accountability, results, customers -- and, like a CEO, has little patience for excuses. He would fire bad teachers and shut down bad schools. And he embraces all the reformist ideas that the education establishment deplores most: charter schools, school vouchers, teacher testing.

As a result, Peyser is encountering no small amount of skepticism. "Philosophically, we would be antagonists," says Boston Teachers Union president Ed Doherty. Adds liberal activist Jim Braude: "There's absolutely no evidence he believes in public education. There's no evidence he believes in public anything." Peyser, says Massachusetts Teachers Association president Stephen Gorrie, "doesn't understand K-12 education." Some critics have assailed him for sending his own child to tony Milton Academy.

Yet even Peyser's political foes respect him for his genial personality and considerable intelligence. He is a mild-mannered alternative to his tart-tongued and oft-reviled predecessor, John Silber. Perhaps one reason Peyser generates so much mistrust is that he's a rare creature: a conservative intellectual in Massachusetts. Since 1993 he's been the executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a libertarian think tank in Boston. In a state where most serious thinkers call themselves liberal, Peyser is one of the few conservatives who has regularly translated big ideas into policy. His type is more commonly found in such conservative Washington institutions as the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, feeding ideas to Republican lawmakers.

Now, however, Peyser is leaving the world of think-tank wonkery and putting himself on the front lines of political combat. With the education establishment promising to fight him vigorously, the question is whether Peyser can shift from low-profile insider to high-profile crusader. His opponents brand him a radical whose ideas threaten the children of Massachusetts. But Peyser argues that his vision is what the public wants. And all he wants is a chance to make his case.

"I don't mind being controversial," Peyser says. "I just hope that people judge me on the merits, rather than rumors."

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It's true that Peyser is a poor fit in the role of villain. Some liberals have noted a resemblance between Peyser and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed -- suggesting that his choirboy looks conceal a fiery radical interior. Maybe. But in person, Peyser, 43, comes across as a man possessed not by animus or righteousness but by the power of ideas. In an unwrinkled peach-pink oxford shirt and a rather garish horizontally striped tie, Peyser radiates a kind of efficient intensity. He speaks with a moderate tone and a steady gaze, using a jargon-filled vocabulary that reflects the several years he has spent immersed in educational theory at the Pioneer Institute.

"He's very even-tempered. He is very very smart -- a top 2 percent type of intelligence," says former Weld aide Charlie Baker, who is Pioneer's co-director and a friend of Peyser's. "And he is open to other people's points of view."

Those words reflect the stark contrast between Peyser and the acerbic bomb-thrower he officially replaced last month. John Silber's entertainingly blunt style helped to raise the board's profile and to put a public face on the state's sweeping 1993 Education Reform Act. But Silber's swashbuckling style -- including such famous "Silber shockers" as his contention that garbage collectors should be paid more than teachers -- drove many of the Board of Education's nine members crazy.

Still, it was not by plan that Peyser got Silber's job. Paul Cellucci originally wanted Peyser to replace acting education commissioner David Driscoll. But Cellucci couldn't muster enough votes from the board. Most members felt that Driscoll, a career educator, was a better fit for a commissioner's job, which requires close dealings with education bureaucrats and teacher unions.

To break the deadlock, Silber stunned the board by resigning, which allowed for a deal: Peyser replaced Silber, while Driscoll stayed as commissioner. Cellucci was angry and embarrassed, but several board members say they're pleased with the outcome. As board member Roberta Schaefer puts it: "[Jim's] experience is in the policy realm and not running a big bureaucracy. I see the policy strength as being a complement to Driscoll's strength in administration."

Even Driscoll agrees, and says he looks forward to working with Peyser. "I think our styles complement one another," he says, adding: "His ideas and mine are a heck of a lot closer than people think. We're not that far apart."

Silber likes the fact that Peyser is no ed-establishment man. "The real issue for Peyser is whether he's going to be a leader on that board or not. He's going to have to watch the Department of Education," Silber says, complaining that an education bureaucrat had recently "tried to subvert" a teacher test with an inaccurate memo.

Of course, that's typical of Silber's gothic world-view. Peyser, as is his nature, is more upbeat. "I would hope that [educators] recognize that although we may have disagreements on certain policies, the underlying principles and objectives are shared," he says. Ticking off his criteria for school improvement, such as accountability and results, Peyser says that "none of those things are considered to be radical. I think they're considered to be mainstream."

This conciliatory tone is a stark contrast to Silber's grouchiness, something Peyser acknowledges. "Probably not too many `Peyser shockers,' " he says with a laugh. This is the Peyser way: steady and low-key -- but still intense. If Silber was a Roman candle, Peyser is a halogen lamp.

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Even as a boy, Jim Peyser was something of an insider. He grew up in the suburban New York town of Irvington, where he had ultimate access to City Hall: his father was the mayor.

Peter Peyser spent seven years running Irvington before his election to Congress as a Republican in 1972. After a failed 1976 Senate bid, he switched parties and reclaimed his seat for two more terms. In a description that could just as easily fit John Silber, the 1980 Almanac of American Politics described Peter Peyser as "something of a maverick, with a brash personality and an unpredictable voting record."

This maverick's son never expected to wind up making education policy. He attended Colgate University and Tufts University's Fletcher School of Diplomacy, and worked briefly on international-trade issues as a congressional aide before joining the business side of the Boston high-tech firm Teradyne in 1986.

Peyser's first foray into Massachusetts's public schools was as a math tutor for Boston High School freshmen, an experience that showed him the school system's flaws firsthand. "The bureaucratic struggle associated with running schools" appalled Peyser. "The main, seemingly all-consuming activity is administrative rather than educational," he says.

His interest piqued, Peyser grew more involved in the schools through such tutoring programs as Boston Partners in Education. Along the way, he befriended Pioneer Institute chairman Steven Wilson, who shared his fascination with charter schools. In 1993 Wilson persuaded Peyser to join the growing conservative think tank.

Pioneer had been founded in 1987 by a group of wealthy, conservative businessmen interested in applying "market principles to public policy," and Peyser arrived at a felicitous time. Pioneer's smaller-government credo had found an enthusiast in a libertarian governor named Bill Weld, who drew on the organization for personnel (including Steve Wilson and Pioneer co-director Charlie Baker, who became Weld's powerful budget chief) and for policy ideas on such issues as government privatization, welfare reform, health care, and education. Eventually, Pioneer took to proclaiming itself "the most influential think tank in Massachusetts."

As chairman, Peyser sustained Pioneer's relevance and maintained its conservative line. He argued strongly against relaxing the state's 1995 welfare-reform law, called for a rollback in the state income tax, and became a leading skeptic on the financial wisdom of building a new convention center in Boston.

In particular, Peyser's vigorous support for charter schools -- public schools that are run by independent groups and free from union and school-board rules -- is credited with helping to move what was a fringe educational experiment toward the mainstream. This week the legislature will hold hearings on a bill to triple the state's charter-school "cap" from 50 to 150.

"I think a combination of Jim's intelligence and his personality helped nudge [Pioneer] toward the respectable center," says Charlie Baker. "It was certainly viewed as a crazy bunch of kooks when I got there."

There's a lesson in the rise of Jim Peyser and the Pioneer Institute, says one liberal Democrat: "In Massachusetts, thinkers on the right work feverishly to convert their ideas into concrete outcomes. Thinkers on the left -- well, they just think."

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Despite six years of sweeping education reform that has pumped more than five billion state dollars into the public schools since 1993, thousands of public-school students fared miserably on the state's first round of standardized tests last year. Those billions don't seem to have affected the state's SAT scores, either, which are hovering around the national average at 1016. And classroom help may not be on the way: 44 percent of teacher candidates failed the state's first certification test last year. Some educators say teachers and schools are getting a bad rap, but a consensus has emerged that changes are needed now. "The whole education system is in trouble," Peyser says.

Peyser's top priority is to establish a rigid "accountability system." He wants the state to do a better job of evaluating schools' performance. Good ones would be rewarded, bad ones would see teachers fired -- or be shut down altogether.

He also wants to get tougher on the state's teachers. Peyser supports a stringent teacher-testing bill filed by the governor, but that's up to the legislature. What the board can do, he says, is set higher standards for teacher recertification, which now happens almost automatically every five years. Peyser also suggests new standards for teacher certification that would allow qualified people into classrooms even if they lack a teaching degree.

More broadly, Peyser will promote the central themes of his education philosophy: choice and competition. That means calling for more charter schools and trying to win support for school vouchers, government checks that parents can use for private school instead of public school. The idea is to provide some choice to parents, especially low-income families who couldn't otherwise keep their kids away from a rotten local school. And choice, Peyser insists, will inevitably breed competition, as schools strive to attract more pupils -- and hence more dollars -- through better performance.

Charter schools and vouchers may be reviled by teacher unions and liberals, but they're creeping across the land like kudzu. Some 1100 charter schools now operate in 29 states, with the support of Bill Clinton. School-voucher programs are now under way in Milwaukee and Cleveland and are being considered in Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and New York City. (Like charter schools, however, vouchers require action by the legislature; Peyser can lobby for voucher programs, but he can't decree them.)

"While incentives to get people to change are necessary, there can't be a single strategy that will be successful in all districts and all schools to expect that to happen," says Boston schools superintendent Thomas Payzant. Making every school a charter school, Payzant says, "couldn't happen fast enough to deal with . . . the current generation of students now in our schools. There have to be more systemic strategies that will do more than improve a few schools, but will increase the likelihood that there will be substantial improvement in all of the schools."

Peyser, however, says his ideas are aimed at today's generation. "These kids are suffering in the current system," he says. "They're not thriving. What are we comparing a choice system against? The status quo is not working for them."

Still, major questions remain about the wisdom of relying on the market principles that underlie charter schools and vouchers. Both threaten to drain money, good students, and attention from the public-school system, potentially making bad schools worse. Choice might punish the children of parents too unmotivated to explore their options. What's more, both charters and vouchers are largely unproven. Many charter schools fared poorly on the MCAS standardized test last year. And since vouchers are prohibited by the state constitution (a provision that's being challenged by pending lawsuits at the state and federal levels), they remain several years away.

Peyser's hard line on teachers raises questions, too. Teachers are underpaid and often overburdened with unmanageably large classes. And they must contend with larger socioeconomic forces, such as poverty and family breakdowns, that sometimes disable their students.

Clearly, Peyser doesn't have all the answers. But then, who does? In its 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk," the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned of "a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people." Since then, America has poured billions into its schools, to little avail. That's why so-called radical reform ideas are moving further into the mainstream every day. Last year, for instance, Massachusetts senator John Kerry gave an almost Peyseresque speech calling for an end to teacher tenure, applauding charter schools, supporting new teacher-certification standards, and even hinting at support for school vouchers.

Few of Kerry's colleagues, however, have been so willing to embrace education reform. But is that politically wise? As Charlie Baker says of the charter-school movement: "It's always been such a shock to me that good Democrats let us Republicans jump in on that one."

Democratic consultant Mary Anne Marsh says the Jim Peysers of the world are more in tune with average parents than most people realize. "If the teacher unions and the politicians and the press go around and listen to what people are really saying, then I think you'd hear a very different story," she says.

An op-ed Peyser wrote for the Boston Herald provides a good insight into his thinking. His subject was welfare reform, but Peyser could just as easily have been talking about a radical overhaul of the schools. "The risks associated with change are inevitably great, but sometimes the risks of maintaining the status quo are far greater," he wrote. "Such an experiment cannot be attempted without at least a short-term human cost. But the long-term human cost of inaction may be much higher." Peyser's hope is that when it comes to school reform, the anxious parents of Massachusetts will agree.

Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.