Superintendent of Schools

The Superintendent of Schools reports to the Board of Education and is responsible for overseeing the operations of the School District.

 

The Superintendent provides leadership for and monitors the development and implementation of all educational and business plans and programs that are designed to facilitate the achievement of the District's goals and policies. His number one priority is to improve student achievement.

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Mark Roosevelt was appointed Superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools in August of 2005.

 

Since his appointment, he has led the development and implementation of an aggressive academic reform agenda called Excellence for All. Over the past four years, key elements have been put in place to improve student achievement, including:

Mr. Roosevelt also played a lead role in the planning and development of The Pittsburgh Promise®, a remarkable initiative that provides a scholarship to all colleges and universities and many technical/trade schools in Pennsylvania for all Pittsburgh Public Schools graduates, regardless of income, who meet academic and attendance requirements. To learn more, click on The Pittsburgh Promise at left.

 

In 2009, Pittsburgh Public Schools made history by becoming the largest district in Pennsylvania to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Achieving AYP for 2008-09 means that the District has met all of its targets on each of three standards – high school graduation, test participation and academic performance.

 

This is the first time the District has made AYP in the seven school years since NCLB was signed into law in January 2002. As a result, the District will move into Making Progress status under NCLB.

 

Click on Student Achievement Results for more information about the significant academic progress students have made over the past several years. 

Before arriving in Pittsburgh, Mr. Roosevelt had established himself as a public-sector change agent with a proven track record in educational reform.

As Chair of the Massachusetts State Legislature’s Education Committee, Mr. Roosevelt co-authored and steered to passage the Education Reform Act of 1993, landmark legislation providing the equitable resources and accountability measures necessary for school improvement. The Act has produced extraordinary gains in student achievement. For example, by 2007 the average Massachusetts fourth grader was performing at a higher level in math than the average sixth grader in 1996. And late in 2008 results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) confirmed that Massachusetts students are not only the best in the country at nearly all grade levels, they are also competitive globally. The Commonwealth’s 8th graders tied for first in the world in science and were sixth in math; 4th graders scored second in science and third in math.

In 1994, Mr. Roosevelt was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Massachusetts.

Mark Roosevelt holds a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College. He is a graduate of the Broad Urban Superintendent’s Academy, an intensive executive management program designed to prepare educators and professionals from other fields to lead large city school systems. He has taught Political Science at Brandeis University, where he was also the Director of the Gordon Public Policy Center and currently teaches a course on the intersection of American history and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz Graduate School of Public Policy.