In the often treacherous cauldron of education politics in this state, it is especially critical to remember how we got to where we are today. Such memories will help us make sense of recent calls to abandon key elements of education reform in the face of the current budget crisis–and resist them.

The years prior to 1993 were dark times for education. Massachusetts was nearly dead last among states in terms of K-12 spending as a percentage of income, and we had one of the largest disparities in spending between rich and poor districts. This was due to state government’s inadequate contribution to local schools, which left districts overly reliant on their own, often meager, ability to raise sufficient funds from the property tax.

Lack of money was not the state’s only failure. Before 1993 the state set no standards for schools. There were no statewide benchmarks for what every child taught in public school ought to know. The only subjects required by the state were civics and physical education.

The Education Reform Act of 1993 changed all that. The essence of the law was a deal. The state would give local schools an enormous amount of additional money in return for greater accountability for student achievement. The trade was clearly articulated: money for accountability.

Perhaps the most significant story in Massachusetts since 1993 is that, contrary to many people’s expectations, the state has honored its financial commitment. An extraordinary amount of money–cumulatively well over $7 billion of new funding–has been sent primarily to poorer districts under a formula designed to ensure that every district in the Commonwealth would spend at least at “foundation budget” level. This was the amount of spending deemed sufficient to provide every child with a minimally adequate education. By the year 2000 every district was spending at the foundation level and most districts were spending a good deal more. For many poor districts this meant almost tripling their per-pupil expenditures.

Just as important, in the context of the current fiscal crunch, is the priority now given education funding. During the financial crisis of 1989-90, education was one of the hardest-hit areas of the state budget. We lost nearly an entire generation of young teachers to pink slips. Now, the state’s leaders place education at the top of their spending priorities. Despite an increasingly serious budget crisis, Chapter 70 education aid has actually gone up, not down, the last two years. The budget process now underway for next year promises to be the most difficult to date. Yet for all state leaders, the foundation budget remains sacrosanct; the idea of any school-district budget being cut below foundation-budget level has become politically unthinkable. This is a remarkable reversal of fortunes for our public schools.

Despite this evidence of ongoing commitment, the budget crisis and the resulting uncertainty have given new energy to those who oppose key components of the education reform law. We are hearing new and renewed calls for postponing or even eliminating the MCAS graduation requirement. And the funding crunch has fueled a push to have the Legislature place a moratorium on the creation of charter schools.

Yielding to these demands would break the deal we made in 1993. Even worse, it would expose the state as a fair-weather education reformer, willing to give up on the goal of giving all students the education they deserve the minute the fiscal going gets tough.

It may be a catch phrase of “compassionate conservatism,” but that does not make it any less true: Many of our children have been greatly damaged by the bigotry of low expectations. It is the core intellectual premise of standards-based education reform that all students can learn to a high standard–and must be offered an education that affords them an opportunity to fully participate in American life. By rallying against the standard, MCAS opponents are contributing to the culture of low expectations and defeat that has trapped so many students for so long.

The interminable, rancorous debate over MCAS distorts and restricts the conversation about education in Massachusetts. I was recently struck by this fact as I have spent time with educators and policy-makers from other states. I was impressed in many ways by our advantages. We have more money to spend in all of our communities than most other states. And it is widely acknowledged that we now have among the best state standards for what students should be expected to know and, in MCAS, arguably the best test for determining what they have learned.

But many other states and communities have moved beyond the debilitating debate about standards and testing. Instead they are discussing how to aggressively use test data as a diagnostic tool. They are using student assessments to drive change in the classroom that will improve teaching and student performance.

The standard set for passage of MCAS should be seen for what it is–the bare minimum level of achievement expected of any high school graduate in Massachusetts. It now appears that 6,000 high school seniors will not receive their diplomas this spring because they have not passed the 10th-grade MCAS English and math test. That number is far smaller than many would have predicted even a year ago, though it is still a shame. Nonetheless, it is more an indictment of their schools’ failure to do right by these students–though in some cases it is students who are unwilling to attend school regularly and do sufficient work–than it is of the test. Either way, far better to identify these students and offer continued help–beyond Graduation Day, if necessary–than to hand them a phony diploma and send them off into a world they are educationally unprepared for.

Similarly, using the budget crunch as an excuse for smothering the charter-school movement in its crib would be another disservice to parents and students. If the main thrust of the Education Reform Act was standards and accountability, a secondary aspect was introducing elements of choice and extra-institutional innovation into our public school system. Since then, 46 charter schools–state-sanctioned and publicly financed but free of bureaucratic and contractual constraints–have opened, serving more than 16,000 students. Some 12,800 students remain on waiting lists.

Critics have complained all along about the money charter schools “take away” from “public schools,” even though the schools the per-pupil funding goes to are every bit as public as the district schools they come from. But now these opponents are calling charter schools “frills” that cannot be afforded now that state education funding is no longer rising by hundreds of millions of dollars per year. They insist that charter-school enrollment be essentially frozen in place, with no additional schools approved for opening (even though state law would allow up to 100 more) and no existing ones allowed to expand beyond limits already approved by the state.

The competition for students between district schools and even the small number of charter schools that now exist has begun to heat up. That is exactly as the law intended. Competition for funding was always a part of that equation, though it became more intense when partial reimbursement to school districts that lose students to charters was cut in this year’s budget. Gov. Romney has proposed restoring those reimbursements next year–a major concession to school districts and charter-school critics. The spread of charter schools should continue as long as there are educational entrepreneurs who are willing and able to create promising new schools that attract students and teach them to the same high standards we have set for district schools.

Ten years after passage of the Education Reform Act, the focus is finally where it should be–on educating all of our children to a reasonable standard. The MCAS graduation requirement is driving long overdue change in school districts across the state, and charter schools are offering options to the status quo for families who can’t afford to buy them for themselves. We need more, not less, accountability, especially for schools and districts that are not showing appreciable progress in student achievement. And we need more, not less, choice for the parents of children in these schools.

Funding crunch or not, we need to carry on, not give up. For too long the conversation about the achievement gap has been about the kids: “They are poor; they do not come to school prepared to learn; they have lousy homes and troubled families.” Some of this is true, but poor academic performance is not an inevitable result. The Education Trust, in Washington, DC, has identified more than 4,000 schools serving predominantly poor, predominantly African-American and Latino children that are educating a majority of their students to impressive levels. These schools and districts are succeeding by setting high standards, establishing rigorous curricula, and holding teachers and students accountable for results.

How sad it would be for us in Massachusetts to retreat now that we have come this far. And how sad it is that we keep debating calls for retreat rather than responding to urges to move forward, raising standards and promoting achievement for all our children.

Former state representative Mark Roosevelt, co-author of the Education Reform Act, is vice chairman of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education.