Alumni Stories: Paul Bolaji

The Consensus Builder

Paul Bolaji believes that improving education requires inviting everyone to the table

March 2022

Paul Bolaji (CRPL 2015) grew up in a home where education was venerated. 

“My parents are from Nigeria, and it’s a pretty common stereotype that Nigerians wear their degrees as badges of honor,” he says. “My mom is an architect and my dad is a doctor, and they made sacrifices so that my siblings and I could attend the best schools. And I’ve always been mindful that there’s so much information out there and so many ways you can analyze it. Education is about doing that to figure out who you are.”

Bolaji was shocked at what he saw when, as an undergraduate at The Ohio State University, he served as a tutor in the Columbus, Ohio public school system.

“There were teenagers who couldn’t read—who had gone from grade to grade and couldn’t do basic things—and I wanted to understand why that happened so that I could help change it,” he recalls. “The experience sparked my interest in education policy and in addressing the huge gaps in resources at different schools and in different districts.”

After graduating with a degree in political science, Bolaji joined Teach for America and taught in a high school in Dallas. He ultimately decided that law school would best equip him to understand how to make changes at the level of education policy. Before enrolling at Columbia Law School, however, he spent a year in Nigeria, working for a committee chair in the Nigerian Senate. The experience was disillusioning but eye-opening.

“I realized the ginormous amount of work it takes to get anything done, anywhere, and that changing policy is a glacial endeavor,” he says. “And I saw that to make change happen, you need leaders who can build consensus.” 

For Bolaji, now a rising sixth-year associate in mergers and acquisitions at the New York City-based multinational law firm Skadden, CPRL’s Evolutionary Learning Framework and emphasis on stakeholder engagement were key building blocks in learning how to do precisely that.

“I loved how CPRL brought together people from the social sciences with people from law, business, and policy,” he says. “Education is so complicated—there are so many pieces within its fabric—and so changing policies requires leaders who invite the entire community to the table.”

For his CPRL project, Bolaji was part of a team working with the New York City Department of Education to create a process for obtaining feedback from teachers on how the implementation of new curriculum standards and resources were being utilized in the department and collating best practices amongst the various cohorts to help improve instruction for students.

“A lot of times teachers get left out of policymaking, but we did one-on-one interviews with them, in their classrooms,” he recalls. “We really heard from people in the system.” Concurrent with that work, Bolaji says, CPRL also helped him to understand the importance of collecting data to make informed decisions. “We really quantified, distilled and thematically organized the experiences of the teachers we spoke with. We looked at data that put their experiences in context–for example, how many dollars were being spent on prisons rather than on resources for the schools where they were working. And that, in itself, was an exercise in building a consensus around our understanding of what we were learning.”  

With a budding career in mergers and acquisitions law, Bolaji has been less focused on education than in the past, though he is constantly on the lookout for pro bono projects that deal with education issues and, through his support of TFA, remains “very much an education advocate.” Still, his current work draws on many of the same skills he honed at CPRL.

“Doing deals is all about consensus building,” he says. “Identifying key stakeholders, making everyone feel heard, getting input from everyone internally and externally – it’s all still very much a part of my daily mantra.” 

Down the road, he says, his dream job would be to apply his legal expertise on behalf of a technology company devoted to “improving processes for critical services.” He’d also like to find a way to be formally involved with education policymaking.

“I’m laser-focused on local school-board races,” he says. “I just got married and my wife and I are constantly talking about our future kids and the types of opportunities we want to make sure are available to them. I think that one of the ways I’ll be able to help ensure that those opportunities will be available is by being a vocal advocate not just for my kids, but the kids in my community in general, so I can definitely see myself getting active and involved in local politics at the school board level.”

When that day comes, he knows he’ll have to learn patience with the political process. 

“But hey,” he says. “As long as you’re learning, you’re growing.” 

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.