Paul Reville testifies before Congress in 2007. [Courtesy U.S. Senate]

Gov. Deval Patrick appointed Paul Reville, 58, to the post on Tuesday, surprising many; his education adviser Dana Mohler-Faria had long been considered the front-runner.

Instead, Mohler-Faria, president of Bridgewater State College, was named to the newly expanded Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

"Paul has done a fantastic job as chairman of the Board of Education and will continue to make great contributions as secretary of education. I am excited about what possibilities lie ahead for our kids," said Patrick in a statement. "A first-rate education is the gateway to opportunity. The Readiness Project will give us the road map for the next phase of education reform, and a strong cabinet-level secretary will provide the leadership."

Legislation passed in January established the new Executive Office of Education, which the Patrick proposed to encourage a seamless delivery of education from prekindergarten through higher education.

Patrick had made Reville as chairman of the state Board of Education last fall, ousting Mitt Romney appointee Christopher R. Anderson. Now he will lead the state's new Executive Office of Education.

"I am honored to assume the role of secretary for a governor who is deeply committed to making schools more effective instruments of building equity, excellence and opportunity for all students in the commonwealth," said Reville in a statement.

He will become the first education secretary since the post was abolished in 1996; his appointment is effective July 1.

The education expert was a leader of the state education reform effort in 1993. He served on the Board of Education from 1991 to 1996, and he is the president of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy in Cambridge. He also is director of the Education Policy and Management Program and a lecturer on educational policy and politics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is co-chairman of the National Center on Time and Learning and the co-founder and former executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education.

Six years ago, Reville had testified against creating a secretariat, saying it would create competing power centers in the why the Romney administration had structured it.

"The commonwealth has tried an education secretariat twice in recent decades and in both cases, the experience has been so negative that the Legislature has chosen to abolish the position," he said then. "Why go down this road again?"

At that time, Reville said the organizational lines were unclear between boards, commissioners secretary and governor. Under the new Executive Office of Education, the secretary will have a voting seat on the three boards corresponding to the office's three departments - Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Board of Early Education and Care and Board of Higher Education - and approval over the appointment of their chairmen.

The secretary is charged with improving policy coordination across all sectors of education; guiding students seamlessly from one step to the next through every level of their education and into the work force. The Executive Office of Education will help to coordinate the work of the existing education boards to create a comprehensive education system.

The governor also appointed three members to the expanded and redefined Board of Elementary and Secondary Education - Mohler-Faria, Gerald Chertavian, founder and CEO of Year Up, a nationally recognized one-year training and education program that serves low-income youth ages 18 to 24, and Jeffrey Howard, a social psychologist and the founder of the Efficacy Institute, a national not-for-profit agency of education reform. He also appointed Carol Craig O'Brien, early childhood coordinator for Westwood Public Schools, and Dr. Chi-Cheng Huang of Boston University School of Medicine and founder of Bolivian Street Children Project, to the Board of Early Education and Care.