S1-E7: If You Want to Go Far, Go Together (Paul Forbes)

The Radical Bureaucrat

In this episode, Sam and Abram chat with Paul Forbes while he drives one of his Expanded Success Initiative students to college. The Expanded Success Initiative, which Paul runs, is a New York City Department of Education program that works with Black and Latino boys in high schools to make sure they graduate ready for college and career. Paul’s approach has a strong emphasis on community- and relationship-building. Process vs. policy is a major theme in this conversation as Paul shares how he works at the school level to build trust in the program among educators and students. The group revisits the metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle, with its messy curves that combine to create a whole picture, as a stand-in for effective collaboration. They talk about how to reconcile that messiness with policy-making, which tends to have a stronger emphasis on control and order. The conversation—and Paul’s work—is guided by the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, you should go alone. But if you want to go far, you should go together.”