Lee spent the first half of his career working primarily in corporate strategy, finance, and market research. (Photo Courtesy of Victor Lee)
With the Nov. 4 Newton Municipal Election rounding the corner, Ward 8 School Committee candidate Victor Lee is committed to student success, preventative problem-solving, and long-term investment.
As a Newton native, Lee spent the first half of his career working primarily in corporate strategy, finance, and market research, before shifting to education.
Currently, Lee is a full-time doctoral student at Harvard Graduate School of Education, studying education leadership. He also works as a superintendent fellow at the Arlington school district. “I don’t think there’s been anyone else in recent memory who’s had sort of cabinet-level type experience—or a balance of both education leadership at the system level and private sector—that is trying to get onto the committee and provide some guidance from that angle,” said Lee.
With his experience in education leadership, Lee has committed to refocusing school committee investment on a larger and longer-term scale.
“The important thing, I think, for school committee members and people to understand is school committee members are responsible for policy and district-wide decision making,” said Lee. “It’s not micromanaging individual classrooms or even individual buildings.”
Lee broke his campaign down into three parts, the first being a commitment to student success.
“I believe that there is a need for every student … having as much opportunity as they can get to achieve academic excellence,” said Lee.
The breakdown of NPS rigor, Lee emphasized, has decreased opportunity. Newton has historically been lauded for its quality education, and while this has remained an expectation of parents, teachers, and administrators alike, many have expressed discontent, according to Lee.
“The rigor of the school system has kind of slowed down a little bit or not necessarily gotten to the level of expectation that a lot of people in the community are expressing to me,” said Lee.
Lee wants to refocus on academic success in a way that is sustainable. This comes from obtaining and retaining adequate funding, one of Lee’s focuses.
Productive dialogue needs to be had now lest another situation like last year’s budget crisis occur and inhibit new successful solutions, Lee said.
“We’ve got a lot of structural challenges that exist, but I do think we need to find ways to be creative in getting more funding to the school system, because the path that we’re on right now is going to put us in deep holes in three to five years if we’re not careful,” Lee said.
Another pillar of Lee’s campaign is active, data-driven decision-making.
“Looking at a more objective and more comprehensive perspective on how the district is performing is important,” said Lee. “Education tends to lag the private sector by somewhere between five to 10 years in terms of practices, so there’s a lot of things we’ve learned in that sector that could be at least explored further for the education side.”
This comprehensive approach is part of why Lee finds the current mixed-level classrooms to be such an issue.
The subject of intense criticism, mixed-level classrooms aim to resolve achievement gaps that disproportionately impact Newton’s minority students. Lee agrees with the intention on a personal level, as his doctoral program focuses particularly on this idea of balance and opportunity. He has taken issue, however, with the program’s effect on students.
“In my opinion, what we’ve kind of done is draw a weird metaphor where we’re trying to close achievement gaps, but we’re basically holding down the ceiling so that other people can try to catch up,” said Lee.
Lee’s solution is an opt-out program that would hold all students accountable to a certain level of success.
“We’re going to show you that we expect you to be able to perform at that next higher level, because you demonstrate that you’re capable of doing it,” said Lee.
Student success also made Lee unsupportive of the Newton Teachers Association (NTA) strike in early 2024.
“I’m not thrilled with the way the strike lasted for 11 days, especially because it kept kids out of school for so long, and on the heels of a very difficult and delayed return to school policy for COVID-19,” said Lee.
Lee believes similar issues in the future require different methods of resolution.
“Going forward, we have to try to at least recognize and appreciate that they do have that perspective and find ways to kind of address it earlier, rather than waiting until the last minute when negotiating has to happen to, you know, to bat all these things out,” said Lee.
Lee is determined to approach problems with this same preventative perspective.
“Because of my understanding of multiple sides, there’s an opportunity to perhaps reduce the chance of things getting so bad that we have another strike happen in two years, one which [could be] incredibly divisive for the community,” said Lee.
He believes that discourse is not only part of a school committee position, but a tool for his own campaign.
“I’m happy, and grateful even, to my opponent for running because I think this kind of discourse and dialogue has been missing for a long time within Newton,” said Lee.