There’s a lot of talk about “human capital” these days, and that talk can get awfully dry. Out there in the real world, perhaps no one else besides Tomas Hanna epitomizes this trend.
A former career principal in Philadelphia, Hanna was brought into the central office to revamp teacher recruitment and retention, with the help of community groups and others that had focused on the teacher retention crisis. Now in Providence, Hanna is
trying to do the same thing as [deputy] superintendent.
I met him recently, and he seems to have that elusive combination of school-level credibility and central office savvy, and knows how to switch back and forth to get things done.