Robert Spillane

By Peter Baker July 20, 2015 Robert R. Spillane, who helped revive Boston’s troubled schools as superintendent in the 1980s and went on to become one of the nation’s leading education innovators as head of a large suburban district outside Washington, died on Saturday in Boston. He was 80. His wife, Geraldine Spillane, said he died from complications of pulmonary disease while being treated at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Over a long career, Dr. Spillane was superintendent of five school districts, including Glassboro, N.J.; Roosevelt, on Long Island; and New Rochelle, N.Y. He was also a state deputy education commissioner for New York and a runner-up for chancellor of the New York City schools in 1989. (Joseph A. Fernandez, of Miami-Dade County, got the job.) As superintendent of schools in Fairfax County, Va., just outside the nation’s capital, Dr. Spillane received wide attention for pushing for merit pay for teachers, longer school days for children and more rigorous standards for both. President Ronald Reagan visited to praise his work and President Bill Clinton went shortly after Dr. Spillane’s departure to hail the district’s handling of immigrants and diversity. Known for an easy charm, a broad smile and impeccable attire (an immaculately pressed suit with matching silk tie and handkerchief were trademarks), Dr. Spillane — Bud to friend and foe alike — became something of a celebrity in public education systems commonly viewed as run by faceless bureaucrats. As a reformer he displayed a brash zeal that energized supporters and alienated critics, and he earned nicknames like “the Velvet Hammer” and “Six-Gun Spillane” for his willingness to take on entrenched interests. “In order to get their attention, you often have to do something outrageous,” he once said. Another time, at odds with school board members, he declared, “They want a water boy and I want to be the quarterback.” Facing budget cuts, he said, “I’ve got to go to war over that.” When he took over the Boston school district in 1981, it was dysfunctional and worn out after years of fighting over a court-ordered desegregation busing plan. He replaced principals, fired teachers, closed schools and set the district on a path free of court supervision. “He took over one of the worst school systems in the United States, one that was totally demoralized, badly directed, with confused lines of authority, no budgetary systems, no payroll systems, and he turned it around,” John Silber, then the president of Boston University, said after Dr. Spillane left four years later.