The June 5 T&G makes one more point worth mentioning.  As Monty Python used to say, What’s all this then about… free community colleges?  As the editorial notes, the idea “disappointingly fails to address more immediate concerns.”  As the piece notes, Community colleges play a vital role as a portal into post-secondary education — including four-year colleges and technical programs — for nontraditional students, limited-English speakers and others. While state funding may have made community colleges beyond the means of some, doesn’t everyone agree that we have a lot of work to do to ensure that CCs are effective delivery systems for skills needed in the market place?  I mean, a financial services firm, to remain unnamed, has a wonderful relationship […]

The education announcement was long on desire, but its lack of detail and, um, how to get it done (sometimes known as an implementation plan) is buying the Governor more static.  Check out the June 5 editorial in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which makes three points: Conspicuously absent from his presentation, however, were a price tag for the sweeping expansion he envisions and an action plan for overcoming resistance by unions, school administrators and taxpayers to various aspects of his education plan. A decade and a half after enactment of the landmark education reform law, the No. 1 standing of Massachusetts students nationwide has vindicated the “grand bargain” that underlies the effort’s success: a major infusion of funding accompanied by measurable standards and accountability for results. […]