Thomas Payzant has had decades of success in one of the most challenging jobs in America–school superintendent. Only seven years after graduating from Williams in 1962, he became superintendent of the School District of Springfield Township, Pa. He followed that with superintendencies in Eugene, Ore., Oklahoma City, San Diego, and Boston. Between San Diego and Boston he served in the U.S. Department of Education as assistant secretary of education for elementary and secondary education. When he came to Boston in 1995, the school system had been described by the chairman of the state’s Board of Education as being “in free fall.” More than 70 percent of its students lived in poverty. His series of program reforms, called “Focus on Children,” stressed strong leadership at the school level. The result was a reduction in the schools’ performance gap, as more challenging curriculum spread throughout the district. Even outside the magnet schools, the number of students taking Advanced Placement Courses grew by a factor of ten over five years. Payzant earned a master of arts in teaching and history and a doctorate in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he now serves as senior lecturer.