Former state legislator Kelvin Roldan will be starting a new job as deputy education commissioner in Rhode Island – focusing on reforming the troubled public schools in Providence.
A Democrat, Roldan served three terms in the legislature as a representative from Hartford, serving as a deputy majority leader and vice chairman of the budget-writing appropriations committee.
After spending nine years working in the Hartford public schools, Roldan eventually earned a Doctor of Education Leadership at Harvard University. His doctoral thesis focused on the New Haven public schools – a large system with more than 21,000 students, 3,400 employees, and a budget of $372 million per year. He served as a doctoral resident and policy assistant to New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, who lost to Democrat Justin Elicker in the Democratic primary and in November’s election.
Over the past 18 year, Roldan has served as advisor to three superintendents of schools and two mayors in a career focused chiefly on education and government.
He will be paid more than $175,000 per year in trying to fix the troubled Providence schools that Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo has described in crisis with a constant stream of revolving superintendents, byzantine bureaucracy, aging buildings, and long-term hand-wringing with little progress in decades.
Roldan, though, has faced challenges in the past.
Growing up in the old Stowe Village complex, he eventually received a bachelor’s degree in political science and Chinese from Middlebury College in Vermont before receiving a master’s degree in public policy from Trinity College in Hartford. From there, he received a sixth-year diploma in educational leadership from the University of Connecticut before heading to Harvard for his doctorate.
