After nearly 15 years of decline, the question is whether things have finally gotten bad enough for state leaders to return to the high standards, accountability, and strategic access to high quality choices that were pillars of the most successful education reform in modern American history.
Jamie Gass
Posted inOpinion
We need to confront the state’s long decline in student achievement
Massachusetts NAEP scores are down to where they were 20 years ago. The deterioration in the quality of public education in the state had been underway for nearly a decade by the time the pandemic hit.
Posted inOpinion
Ending MCAS requirement would be a step backward
IN RECENT YEARS, many Massachusetts public education policy decisions have been made with an eye toward increasing equity. It’s a worthy goal, but too many of the policies have proven to […]
Posted inEducation
Teachers union wants ed reform money — but not accountability
THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION is calling on its members to be “conscientious objectors” by refusing to administer MCAS and not let their own children take the dreaded tests. Such farcical […]
Posted inEducation
Civics education is crucial to engaged citizenship
A FORMER PRESIDENT of the United States calls “for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” less than two years after a mob […]
Posted inEducation
Time for state action on troubled Boston Public Schools
FORMER STATE SENATE President Tom Birmingham often describes the centerpiece of the landmark 1993 Education Reform Act he co-authored as a massive infusion of state dollars into public schools in […]
Posted inEducation
How Mass. abandoned its recipe for educational success
EINSTEIN DEFINED INSANITY as “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Education policy makers in Massachusetts have taken the concept to a new level by doubling down on policies […]
Posted inArts and Culture
Dimming the state’s literary light
“A ROBUST GENIUS, born to grapple with whole libraries,” is how 18th-century biographer James Boswell described the illustrious British man of letters, Dr. Samuel Johnson. It’s a literary reference that’s […]
Posted inEducation
Tie state ed funding to school committee seats
FEW DOUBT THAT the time has come to update the mechanism by which the Commonwealth funds local school districts. After 25 years, the current formula isn’t keeping pace with rising […]
Posted inArts and Culture
Common Core’s slashing of fiction drains life out of schools
“LIVE, THEN, AND be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget,” reads The Count of Monte Cristo by French novelist Alexandre Dumas, “that… all human wisdom is contained […]
Posted inEducation
Bill Weld mastered the classics – and disruption of education status quo
MASSACHUSETTS’ 68TH GOVERNOR, Bill Weld, might be the only state executive in a century who dreams in ancient languages and can effortlessly connect lessons from 5th-century B.C. Greek historians with […]