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The Essential Generalist: My Education Policy Journey

June 11, 2025

A Year of Learning, Unlearning, and Connecting the Dots

How does a great or powerful idea in education become a state policy that supports teaching and learning? What convolutions and mysteriously detailed ministrations occur to make policy happen? I’ve always been curious. That’s why I’ve always wanted to participate in the Massachusetts Education Policy Fellowship at the Rennie Center. It’s a 10-month program that brings together a diverse group of leaders in the education space to strengthen their understanding of public policymaking and build their leadership capacity. 

I’d completed the application to take part—twice!—but never submitted it. Thanks to the opportunity provided by FINN’s ongoing investment in professional development, I finally hit send, and was so excited to finally unravel the mysteries.

What The Education Policy Fellowship Taught Me

I teamed up with two dozen other education professionals who care deeply about making policy work better for all school communities. Over 10 months, we dove into various topics and met with elected officials and their staff, lobbyists and consultants, representatives from state agencies, and other leaders in higher education, K12 and early education. We traveled to Boston for a private tour of heritage sites, and to Washington, D.C., to see federal education policymakers in action on Capitol Hill. The experience provided me with the privilege to step back from the day-to-day, learn from other smart and passionate people, and focus on how to create lasting change for schools, educators and families.

What the fellowship taught me is that the complexity of policymaking is often intentional. It’s a feature, not a bug; those who know how to navigate and decipher that complexity hold the power, after all.

As the months progressed and each expert guest lecturer confronted a Zoom mosaic of fellows yearning for understanding, something bigger also began to reveal itself to me: I knew more than I realized. As complex as policymaking may be, powerful communications is always the essential ingredient for every policy win. The complexity isn’t the most important thing. The stories were.

Experts like former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville offered insight into complex topics in systemic education reform. We dove into the Civil Rights history of Boston schools (including the infamous busing crisis of the mid-1970s) and got perspectives from figures like Ron Walker from the Coalition of Schools Educating of Boys of Color. These movements confront challenges not with legislative intricacy but by winning over the hearts and minds of key stakeholders.

The Rennie Center Education Fellowship was very much committed to cultivating our storytelling chops. We discussed challenging case studies, like retaining a diverse teacher corps, and worked on how to develop and plan messaging to win over hearts and minds. We also practiced advocacy training, “elevator pitches” and performed policy analysis using Bardach’s “Eightfold Path”—which ends with ‘telling your story’ after all. 

To be effective as an advocate, I don’t need training to track every twist, deal, and negotiation behind the scenes of the classic “Bill on Capitol Hill.” What I do need is strong communication principles: appeal to emotion, back it with data, repeat clear and compelling messages, show the power of the coalition. Cut through the noise with stories that stick and offer drafts of legislation to edit—not blank pages to fill.

That realization struck a deep chord. I am someone who has built a career—and a worldview—around connecting disciplines and crossing boundaries. I’ve often felt ever so slightly outside the center of expertise. This fellowship showed me that that uncertainty is in fact my fuel. I thrive under the unique pressure of translation across domains, proving utility by understanding disparate fields and how they relate to one another. I was taking in so much all the time that it was natural for me to think I wasn’t an expert. I had to know enough about teaching, adolescent psychology, media engagement, community organizing, branding, education law… and on and on. I knew the real students behind the data, I’d designed and implemented policy, and been at the center of systems-level change. I wasn’t an expert in one thing. I was an expert in the relationships between it all. Being a communications consultant isn’t just about knowing a little bit of everything—it’s being able to synthesize, reflect, and lead with grounded insight.

Could it be that it was I who possessed the answers?

The Essential Generalist

I’ve long joked that as a communications consultant, I’m a “dangerous generalist,” someone who knows enough to ask good questions, enough to be useful, and enough to know what I don’t know. Communications and PR people have to move across disciplines, connect ideas, and spark novel insights at the intersections. 

I know now that being a dangerous generalist isn’t a punchline. It’s a practice. And communication professionals like us are not dangerous–we’re essential.

Effectively advising clients on communications strategy right now is to be attuned to the ways our civic structures are being tested. It’s to hold fast to the belief that interdisciplinary thinking and lived experience (one’s own and others’—particularly those with whom we do not agree) are essential ingredients for meaningful change, even when policy debates grow narrower and more technical. It’s about having the courage to ask: What does humility look like in a policy space that prizes certainty and culture that thrives on grievance? How can we widen the frame without losing sight of the details?

Generalism grounded in reality and compassion is not a liability, it’s a strength. When we bring broad perspectives to specific challenges, we make space for dialogue that is both informed and empathetic. We acknowledge nuance and work within it rather than oversimplifying it. We focus not just on what works, but for whom, and why.

To borrow from former Massachusetts Education Secretary Jim Peyser, who addressed our cohort on the occasion of our graduation ceremony on a warm spring night overlooking all of Boston, “Policy is essential but it is not sufficient.”

It’s easy to think that change only happens at the level of sweeping legislation or visible protest, and only by the powerful and the wonks. The reality is policy is shaped quietly and constantly by individuals; by the questions we ask in meetings; by the way we put empathy before power as a value; and by the courage it takes to say, “I’m not sure, but I care enough to find out.” 

This fellowship validated the reasons why I’ve chosen this career path, even when the work is hard and success feels out of reach. Communications isn’t just about storytelling, it is about how we reveal our values to one another and create understanding and connection. It’s how our individual experiences can inform and be transformed into policies that benefit us all. How the people most affected by decisions are heard, not just studied or worse, neglected. PR, at its best, isn’t “nice to have,” it’s a lifeline for ideas that need oxygen and a place to grow.

As I take stock of my fellowship year and the privilege of continuing education, I’ve recommitted to my role as a communications professional, who listens, connects dots across disciplines, and asks hard questions that focus on people, not just outputs.

The world of education policy isn’t as impenetrable as it may seem and there is plenty of room for each of our stories and perspectives. If you’re feeling the pull to get involved but don’t know where to start, or if you just need a reminder about the power you already hold within your lived experiences, please reach out.

Let’s talk about how your voice can help shape the future of education.

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