THE ROAD to pandemic recovery must run through summer, when programs draw on young people’s interests to help them learn. The steep decline in student test scores is concerning but just the tip of the iceberg in measuring pandemic losses. Researchers estimate that the loss of earnings for Massachusetts students alone will be $21 billion. […]
Paul Reville
Posted inOpinion
Pods could become tipping point in education
PODS ARE POPPING UP everywhere, in all kinds of neighborhood but mostly in affluent places. These pods are a form of parental activism, parental choice during an extended crisis period when the public schools are possibly unsafe and often unable to satisfactorily serve their children. The pods typically consist of a group of parents collaborating […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
End the charter school wars
IT SEEMS TO have become an annual ritual now, like taxes, the flu, or hurricane season. The charter schools war flares up to a point of intensity, sucking up all the oxygen in the education realm and consuming tons of good will and sometimes millions of dollars in the fierce clash of two orthodox cultures, […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Next steps
The commonwealth of Massachusetts is frequently, and with solid justification, considered to be the poster child of successful, systemic, standards-based school reform, but the ultimate goal of the 1993 Education Reform Act, proficiency for all, has not been met. Our students top the nation on several indicators of educational achievement. Massachusetts fourth- and eighth-graders ranked […]
Posted inEducation
An education tour of China reveals great success alongside vast failure
You would think that traveling with a 2-year-old would be enough to discourage trips halfway around the world. But when Primary Source, a regional professional development group, invited us on a two-week tour of China for “education leaders,” my wife and I jumped at the chance. For me, the trip represented an opportunity to explore […]
Posted inEducation
A hard look at education accountability in the wake of No Child Left Behind
No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School AccountabilityPaul E. Peterson and Martin R. West, editorsWashington, DC, Brookings Institution Press, 340 pages. In January 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, which elevated to federal law an approach to systemic educational reform–high standards, regular assessment, and real accountability–that had been […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
The unfinished business of school improvement
Nine years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts launched an historic initiative to improve the state’s system of public education. The set of strategies embodied in the Education Reform Act of 1993 represented the most dramatic set of state school reforms attempted in the last half century. The proposed investment was enormous, but no greater than […]
Posted inUncategorized
Argument
With our 1991 publication Every Child a Winner!, the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) presented the Commonwealth with a challenge to elevate standards of academic achievement for all students. Our members, concerned about the poor preparation of graduates from the state’s public schools, proposed a set of dramatic reforms that ultimately became the foundation […]