In this episode of the Caring, Character, & Community Podcast, Hardin interviews Eva Mitchell, Chief of Accountability at Boston Public Schools. Eva discusses the relationship between accountability, responsibility, and success in pursuit of creating the conditions for collective flourishing within large, varied, and complex educational institutions.
The video version of this interview will be available on our YouTube channel shortly; in the meantime, please click the link below and subscribe for updates:
BU Wheelock College of Education and Human Development
Center for Character and Social Responsibility
“Caring, Character, & Community” Podcast Series
To prepare the next generation to become caring and effectively engaged citizens requires a multi-faceted approach. It includes a focus on personal development, professional development, program development and implementation, and on system change. As part of the CCSR’s focus on the personal and professional development of educators, parents, and community leaders, we use our podcast “Caring, Character, & Community” to introduce our community to people who are using the ethic of caring, a focus on their own and others’ character development, and a commitment to community to create environments in which children and adults can flourish.
In this semester, as the world of education and positive youth development has begun to address the degree to which inequitable conditions interfere with the ability of many youth to flourish, we want to have conversations with educators and community members who are working to foster systems that are grounded in equity. In each interview, we will ask our guests to share their definitions of equity in learning, how they work to create communities that increase equity in learning, and how an ethic of caring and a commitment to community influences their work.
As the Chief of the Division of Accountability, Eva is responsible for Transformation Schools, the ESSER funding strategy, and the Office of Data and Accountability. Eva previously served as the Associate Commissioner for District and School Accountability at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, where she worked on policy development and implementation of the Act Relative to the Achievement Gap, the state Accountability and Assistance Framework, qualitative and quantitative district and school reviews, and state receivership. Prior to that, she was Senior Lead at the Governor’s Office of Educational Quality and Accountability.
She began her career in Boston as a student-teacher at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School, taught at the Washington Irving Middle School, and later was a co-founder of the Harbor School, where she served as Assistant Principal. She served as the Deputy Chief of Education for the City of Boston and most recently as the BPS Deputy Chief of Strategy and Equity.
An active member of the community, Eva has been deeply engaged in organizational and urban development to better serve Boston residents. Volunteering with the Neighborhood Development Corporation of Grove Hall, she wrote the grant that established Grove Hall Main Streets. She later chaired the Blue Hill Avenue Task Force, a collaboration between the City of Boston and 42 neighborhood organizations from Grove Hall to Dudley in order to ensure the design and economic benefits served the needs of those in the neighborhood. She currently serves on several boards, including the Roxbury Community College Foundation, Boston Debate League, and the Calculus Project. She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta.
Eva received her teaching certification at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard. During her time at Harvard, she worked with other students to revitalize the African-American Studies Department, studied under Henry Louis Gates and Cornel West, and received a Ford Foundation research grant from the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. She received her Master’s in Education Policy and Planning at Boston University through a Martin Luther King Fellowship and looks forward to completing her Doctorate in Education Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania in Fall 2021.
Eva lives in Hyde Park with her son, STEM Lead at Mass Robotics. Her daughter specializes in heritage seeds and seed sovereignty. The family stands on the shoulders of her mother, a single mom from Detroit, and grandparents, who moved there from Thomasville, Georgia as part of the Great Migration from the south.
Please visit our archive to listen to previous episodes of the podcast, including interviews from Semester 1: “Leadership in Times of Crisis,” with PK-12, higher-education, and community-based-organization leaders.
Thanks to Lizzie Barcay for the editorial and production work.
Music:
Bluesy Vibes by Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Music provided by FreeMusic109 https://youtube.com/FreeMusic109’’'
Caring, Character, & Community