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Education bureaucrats usually stay under the radar, away from the cameras, locked in a proverbial ivory tower.
That's not new state schools superintendent Brad Smith.
After years of controversy at the Ogden School District, he gets recognized at the grocery store — something he never expected but understands could be his own fault.
He proudly calls himself a "disruptive leader." He feels a "calling" to improve education, which drove him to run for the school district board, to take the post as district superintendent and, finally, to apply for the job leading Utah's schools.
A former small-town prosecutor who still dreams of being a judge, Smith is used to working behind the scenes. But the way he shakes up school culture draws attention.
He doesn't relish the notoriety he's gained over the past eight years, but his time at Ogden virtually guaranteed notoriety. His tenure has been marked by widespread teacher dissatisfaction and flight to other school districts.
At the same time, Ogden students' test scores and graduation rates have improved.
If that's the price of controversy, Smith figures, so be it.
"If that means I'm recognized in the store, if that means I'm ruffling feathers, if that means people hate me, morally and ethically I'm prepared to pay that price," he said.
On Monday, Smith takes the helm at the state Office of Education. His approach to the job could impact everyone from principals and teachers to kindergarten students.
Already, he has suggested public school critics and state lawmakers need to let educators catch a breath. Let them implement the controversial Common Core curriculum. Let the new SAGE testing method continue for a few years before the second-guessing starts.
"We need to give it a good, solid, five or six years so we can understand what it's achieving," Smith said.
In the end, Smith's results-based focus on the job might give skeptical teachers an advocate in the state office they didn't know they had.
Late bloomer
Smith came to his education calling late in life.
Frustrated after a night of helping his kids with their homework, he decided to run for the Ogden School District Board in 2006.
Ogden School District is one of the state's worst-performing school districts, with fewer than three in 10 students scoring proficiently on statewide year-end tests.
The district is also highly diverse. Roughly 55 percent of students are categorized as a racial minority and 75 percent live in low-income households.
Smith didn't like the status quo.
"You can pick your adjective," Smith said. "I was arrogant enough or stupid enough or self-confident enough or just frustrated enough, is what I think I would choose, to say 'I think I can make a positive difference.'"
Former neighbor Shaun Myers, who served with Smith in their LDS bishopric, says Smith's interest in education is about more than simple ambition. It stems from a deep-seated motivation to advocate for the underdog.
"He deeply cares about people and he is a champion for doing things the right way and for looking out for the little guy," Myers said.
Smith, the youngest of four children of a "lunch lady" mother and a rancher-turned-postman-turned-bus driver father, grew up in Salt Lake County. He graduated from Cottonwood High School in 1984 and served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Finland before earning a bachelor's degree in political science and a law degree from the University of Utah.
He met his wife Debbie at an LDS singles ward, which, he said, is "unfortunately, slightly stereotypical." They married in 1991. Three children followed: 22-year-old Amy, 18-year-old Bryce and 14-year-old Matthew. And Smith is a new grandpa — to a two-month-old grand-daughter.
"It worked out well for me," he said. "I believe it worked out well for her but, after all, what kind of person marries an attorney?"
Smith routinely shifts between self-deprecating shots at himself — his weight is an easy, go-to joke — and the careful language of an attorney. It's a dichotomy that plays out in other parts of his life.
An avid outdoorsman and Boy Scout veteran, Smith boats and hunts. He also touts an appreciation of classical music, but loves Billy Joel and Elvis Costello's 80s hits.
Smith is reading a wonkish book about math called "How Not to Be Wrong" and another about data analytics called "Dataclysm" in his spare time.
In 1997, Smith launched a law firm with a partner. And in 2002, he was hired as deputy Box Elder County attorney.
From 2003 to 2010, his firm provided legal services for Box Elder County. The contract — which ballooned to a $1 million payout over those years — drew Smith into a billing controversy. Broken down over those seven years, Smith says, the figure becomes an annual payment of $50,000 per attorney — "not overbilling in anybody's book."
"I don't believe I was overcompensated," he said. "I worked for a price I agreed to work for. I worked as much as I needed to work and I believe we did a good job."
Since his election to the district school board, Smith has maintained his certification with the Utah State Bar but has gradually sold off his ownership in the law firm. His $148,000 salary at Ogden School District has been his primary source of income since then. At the state, he will earn $225,000 a year.
Lessons Learned
Some educators have watched Smith's ascendance with trepidation after seeing him cut a swath through the Ogden district.
As a board member, Smith was a catalyst in a 2011 scuffle with the Ogden Education Association that has earned him a lasting reputation as a union-buster. But Smith says the label doesn't fit.
"I have no problem with collective bargaining," he said. "I had a problem with the complete and total lack of result."
After negotiations with the teachers union broke down, educators were given a simple choice: sign your contract or quit.
"That was so low in integrity that I didn't want to stick around, but I also had to pay my bills," said teacher David Joy. "Every year you would kind of wait to see who came back because you knew everyone was looking to leave."
In August of 2011, without a public hiring process, Smith's board colleagues offered him the district's top job and he replaced retiring Superintendent Noel Zabriskie.
His first meeting on his first day was with the Ogden Education Association, he said.
"We promised each other to return to the collective bargaining table," he said.
Over time, district and union leaders agreed on a new negotiating method that emphasizes problem-solving over horse-trading, said Matt Ogle, executive director of the Ogden-Weber teachers associations.
"We have a relationship where we can go in, we can talk honestly, we can set egos aside and try to come up with what is the most workable, pragmatic solution," Ogle said.
Since the impasse three years ago, Smith said the district and union have worked to retool starting salaries and pay raise schedules and are currently in the first year of a three-year, mutually endorsed contract.
"To say that we have a good relationship with our association would be an understatement," Smith said. "I would say we have a partnership."
But Smith's reforms also extend into schools. Under his watch, auxiliary programs, including reading coaches and library staff, were trimmed and the district embraced a teaching model that relies heavily on student data.
"If he sees a problem, he wants to fix it," Ogle said. "He is a lawyer. He deals with facts and evidence."
Between 2010 and 2013, Ogden's student proficiency rates on the now-abandoned Criterion-Referenced Test increased from 66 percent to 73 percent in English, from 45 percent to 54 percent in math and from 50 percent to 54 percent in science.
Graduation rates also climbed from 59 percent to 69 percent over the same period.
But Joy said Ogden's academic gains came with a paranoid, results-focused culture that pitted teachers against administrators in the pursuit of better student data.
"Even a bully is going to get the lunch money," he said. "So yes, there were results, but the way you go about it matters too."
Friends say Smith's reasons for shaking up Ogden are misunderstood.
"People think of him as cold and calloused at times, but I see Brad's soft side frequently and know that he genuinely cares," Smith's friend and neighbor Tim Scalise said. "He has a good heart and has the best interest of the kids in mind."
An unconventional choice
The state school board voted 8-7 in October to extend an offer to Smith after considering more than 20 candidates.
The choice of a candidate without classroom experience was a sticking point for Utah Education Association President Sharon Gallagher-Fishbauch.
"It wouldn't matter who was in that superintendent's seat," she said. "If they're not an educator, I think that they have a steep learning curve."
But board member Leslie Castle said she was impressed with the work Smith had done in Ogden.
The state school board hopes to achieve a better outcome than it has in the past, she said, and is committed to improving student achievement.
"I would say that anybody who's speaking against Brad Smith is speaking against those things."
The board members who opposed Smith's selection have largely kept their reservations private in deference to the board's decision.
"Once it's a majority vote, we let all the reasons go and move on," Debra Roberts said.
Ogle said he expects Smith to bring his typical, at-times controversial, approach to the state Office of Education.
Everyone may not agree with the methods, Ogle said, but Smith will take steps to address problems in the state.
"He is not wishy-washy about his decisions," Ogle said. "Sometimes you have to have a person in there that is willing to just make it happen and do it."
Smith says he'll serve as long as he is useful. "The day I come to the conclusion that I'm not making a positive difference I will seek to leave," he said.
After two school board elections, Smith said he does not aspire to elective office.
But he spoke fondly of one day returning to legal work or being appointed to a judgeship.
"I have a great love for the intellectual process of the law and a judge is, every day, up to his eyeballs in that," he said. "I just think that would be such a great job."
Smith still thinks of himself as an attorney, first and foremost. He said he values debate and believes an evidence-based, solution-oriented approach to problems is best in most instances.
Education, he said, is "a hard beast to turn around," but there is a work that needs to be done in Utah.
"It's not right that my kids have a better trajectory because of who their mom and dad are than some kid who doesn't look like my kids," he said. "That's not right and it's not acceptable to just say we'll continue doing what we're doing."