LONG BEFORE MORE than $40 million was spent last year making the cases for and against charter public school expansion, I was skeptical about using a statewide ballot initiative to decide the question. I believe ballot initiatives are best reserved for instances where the Legislature is flouting public opinion, and that wasn’t so with Massachusetts […]
Tom Birmingham
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Voc-tech schools are a Mass. success story
MASSACHUSETTS VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL high schools are like the person who toils for years, only to be termed an “overnight sensation” when he or she finally achieves recognition. For over a decade the schools have quietly compiled an impressive record, and the time has come to expand them. Voc-tech schools were once among the staunchest opponents of MCAS […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
A school-choice double standard
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is right to have long supported the Metropolitan Council for Economic Opportunity (METCO), through which more than 3,300 Boston and Springfield students attend school in surrounding suburbs each year. METCO has two basic goals: to bring diversity to suburban communities and to provide urban families […]
Posted inEducation
About-face
The Death and Life of The Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education By Diane RavitchNew York, Basic Books, 283 pages diane ravitch is the preeminent historian of American public education. For decades she has played Cassandra, challenging the received wisdom and questioning trendy notions of what does and doesn’t help […]
Posted inOpinion
A diploma means nothing without evidence of skills and learning
Read Counterpoints by: Education reform in Massachusetts was a grand bargain: a massive infusion of state dollars into our public schools in return for high academic standards and accountability from all. We still have a long way to go, but few would deny that reform has been tremendously successful, and the MCAS test is a […]