Alumni Stories: Matt Bosch

The Real-World Consultant

Matt Bosch is bridging the gap between data-based change theorists and educators on the ground

August 2022

Several years ago, as a vice principal at the KIPP DC WILL Academy in Washington D.C. – part of the national KIPP public charter school network – Matt Bosch (CPRL Spring 2020) designed and ran a 30-hour course to help newer KIPP school leaders use data in their decision-making and measure their impact over time.

As a former teacher, with KIPP and through Teach For America, Bosch had the “street cred” to connect with his audience. Still, he encountered a dynamic that he now sees as one of the fundamental challenges in education reform.

“Educators, especially teachers, care about personal experiences in classrooms and relationships with kids and families,” says Bosch, who once worked with Boston Consulting Group, where he led the Education, Employment and Welfare practice and is now head Strategy and Operations for Walton Enterprises, the over-arching organization that runs the Walton Foundation and other Walton family interests. “People who work with data think about performance metrics for teachers, curricula and institutions. The educators sometimes don’t think big-picture enough, and the metrics people sometimes don’t understand the human element involved in creating a positive culture. Both sides often speak past one another because they don’t understand or empathize with each other’s positions.”

Bridging that gap has been a key focus of Bosch’s career, and he credits CPRL, which he joined while earning his master’s degree at the Yale School of Management, with giving him the perspective and skills to be successful.

“CPRL understands that despite the many hardworking educators in this country who are making a difference every day, the challenges we face require large, systemic change,” he says. “Yet, at the same time, CPRL really thinks about the experiences of teachers and students—not just tracking programs at the macro level.”

Witness Bosch’s CPRL project, for which he and his teammates helped the New Mexico Department of Education redesign its teacher education requirements.

“We engaged with all the stakeholders—not just the education school deans about their requirements but also teachers in traditional schools in Albuquerque and in tribal schools on reservation lands,” he recalls. “It was real-world consulting experience, but with the guidance and supervision we needed. We had our client, we listened, we presented recommendations – and those are the core skills I now use every day.”

CPRL faculty member James Liebman and staff member Amanda Cahn encouraged Bosch to anchor systemic thinking in on-the-ground experience. The approach, embodied in CPRL’s Evolutionary Learning methodology, entails helping organizations identify and outline their “theory of change” and then measure impact at key “points of change” over time – whether in the cycles of the organization’s work, or in the lives of those it serves.  

“In New Mexico, we were working on a very high-level topic—requirements for educator prep programs and how that’s certified by the state,” Bosch says. “But Amanda was really good at keeping us focused on how the technical requirements we were drafting would have real-world impact. The way she helped us to think about it was, ‘This serves teachers better so that they can be effective on Day 1 in the classroom, so that students’ academic outcomes improve, so that students’ life outcomes improve, too.’ She pushed us to constantly keep in mind and translate that long-range theory of change for how educational programs actually drive impact, and, in part, we did that by talking to teachers and students.”  

Bosch did a lot more listening than talking, because the issues in tribal schools in the Southwest of the United States were quite different from those he’d encountered in low-income neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. Administrators worried less about students’ physical safety and transportation needs and more about providing all young people with access to technology and the Internet. The cultural context was different. “One class we observed was focused on the traditional language of the tribal community, which wasn’t the first language for most of the students,” Bosch recalls. And, teachers faced their own unique challenges. “You didn’t have 10 schools in a 5-mile radius or colleagues nearby to talk to. You had to drive two hours to Albuquerque for professional development.”      

At BCG, Bosch and his team worked with ParentChild+, a nonprofit that uses education to break the cycle of poverty for families. Again, he is applying the theory-of-change approach in another distinctive context. 

Under its core model, ParentChild+, which has been operating for more than half a century, equips parents (many of whom are immigrants) to help their young children develop language and literacy skills. 

“An early learning specialist goes into the home of a family and works with a parent with a book or toy,” Bosch says. “And that theory of change has been born out.”

On the impact page on its website, ParentChild+ cites studies showing that the organization’s graduates are 50 percent more likely to be prepared for kindergarten than their socio-economic peers, 50 percent less likely to need special education services by third grade and 30 percent more likely to graduate from high school.     

More recently, however, the early childhood landscape has seen the growth of “informal” group daycare, in which several children may be regularly cared for by one or more unlicensed adults in a home setting. ParentChild+ asked Bosch and his team for help in ensuring that the educational activities in these centers are on par with those offered by licensed facilities.  

“So ParentChild+ asked us to help them apply their one-on-one home visiting model, focused on early childhood education and development, to improve the education focus for informal daycare settings in neighborhoods and communities. Now, under what they call their Family Child Care Model, the ParentChild+ specialists work on the same skills with adults who manage or work in these small, informal centers. And we helped them take that more expansive theory of change and figure out a sustainable strategy for how to grow over time and prioritize in different regions, and reach more families in different settings.” 

Bosch feels his experiences in New Mexico and with BCG bear out the wisdom of tackling education challenges from multiple perspectives.

“I came to CPRL because I was intrigued by the cross-disciplinary aspect—working alongside folks from schools of law, education and policy,” he says. “I think you need all of those viewpoints to get the desired results from our education system. You can’t just look at K-12 schools alone. You have to ensure that kids are kindergarten-ready, but you also have to look at issues of workforce development—the people who were failed by the education system, and who still need access to skills for sustainable jobs and careers in which they can get fulfillment and also feed their families.”

Bosch believes he’ll have an even greater opportunity to address those concerns in his new role with Walton Enterprises.

“The Walton family is known for its systemic focus in education and other issues,” he says. “I’m really excited that I’ll have the chance to make an impact on a national level.”

In Their Own Words

Our alumni network now includes more than 500 leaders, advocates, and champions dedicated to improving school systems and other public sectors. Some alumni work directly with teachers, families, and students, ensuring access to high-quality education. Others work indirectly—supporting improvement from inside private sector organizations. In Their Own Words captures the many and varied ways our alumni lead and improve organizations in education and other public sectors.

About the Author

Joe Levine writes about education, law, science and medicine, and health care. His work has appeared in Time, LIFE, Money, Newsday, and many university magazines.