Where is the Governor on the day when a bill to give 27,000 inner city kids access to charter schools is being debated? 9:00…..Volunteers at the Greater Boston Food Bank…..Greater Boston Food Bank, 70 South Bay Avenue, Boston 11:30…..Attends MIRA’s Annual Thanksgiving Luncheon and discusses the release of the New Americans Agenda Report…..Great Hall 6:30…..Offers remarks at the 10th Annual History and Innovation Awards…..InterContinental Hotel, 510 Atlantic Avenue, Boston All great issues. But, isn’t he awol? Doesn’t anyone remember the casino debate and his book signing in NY?

From the Wall Street Journal comes an incredible story: “The Edsel of Education Reform. The Ford Foundation finds a needy cause: teachers unions.” Ugh. We hate to say it, but don’t be misled by headlines. The biggest headline in education circles last week was that the Ford Foundation is making a whopping $100 million grant “to transform secondary education in the nation’s most disadvantaged schools.” Our eyes raced to see which piece of the vibrant school-reform movement Ford was going to support. Would it be America’s 4,600 charters schools, many outperforming their traditional school peers and some even closing the race gap? Maybe it would be Teach for America, busting at the seams and turning down Ivy League applicants by […]

The bill that we saw last week looked very good. By the weekend we found that the Senate President had tasked the Senate Ways and Means Chair with redrafting portions of it. We have four major issues with the bill. There is an additional major issue that the Charter School Association has, which is related to language requiring three charter approvals in urban areas before other charters would be considered. A lot of theatrics yesterday, with an unexpected amendment by Senators Pacheco and Buoniconti, who want each charter application to be voted on in a local referendum. It was approved and then un-approved by almost identical votes. I tell you this because it points to three things: (1) It is […]

The state legislature’s rewrite of the governor’s two education bills, to expand charter schools and to create new “readiness” schools, is now one bill. Readiness schools are now called “innovation” schools. The charter sections seem to be ok, though we will see as it moves forward if quotas for specific types of students will be part of the final package. That would not be helpful, though requiring charters to do robust outreach to special needs and English language learners is ok with me. One big question I have on the readiness, now innovation, schools. Given that the statutory draft calls for approval by two-thirds of the teachers in the school in order to move forward, I am wondering if we […]

So the unions and superintendents tried the argument that charters do not serve as many disadvantaged students. We dismantled that argument. While charters don’t serve as many special needs kids and English Language learners, both categories designated by adults, they serve many more minority and poor students. So, then the Mass Teachers Association cries out about high attrition in a handful of high-powered charter schools in Boston. But they forget that choice schools are about parents making choices. And, oops, they forget that in fact there is more attrition in the Boston Public Schools. And, uh, ooh, ah, they forget that in the charters they are pointing fingers at there is only a dropout rate of 10 percent, which is […]