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Education
October 20, 2014

Massachusetts Gubernatorial Candidates on K-12 Education Policy

K-12 education policy too often is the province of powerful special interests. It is important for candidates for public office to speak directly to citizens and parents about what they will do for the next generation of schoolchildren if elected. That’s why...
Education
October 6, 2014

Those Mathematical Societies That Supposedly Endorsed Common Core’s Standards Didn’t

Stanford University mathematics professor R. James Milgram included an informative e-mail in his packet of information for state legislators when he testified at a hearing on Common Core in Milledgeville, Georgia on September 24, 2014. The e-mail explains why presidents of many...
Education
September 16, 2014

BPS' all-in adoption of PARCC is bad for kids, and is illegal

A front page article by Jamie Vaznis in the Boston Globe today carries the news that all lower-grade Boston district schools will drop the MCAS and adopt the new Common Core-aligned PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career) test....
Education
September 15, 2014

Doubling Down on Doublespeak

This past week, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by William Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues and once chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in which he defended Common Core as a conservative approach to school reform—allowing,...
Education
August 27, 2014

We Now Have a Smart Exit Strategy from Common Core

Rick Hess and Mike McShane back in the spring wrote in the National Review Online that At the end of March, Indiana became the first state to repeal the Common Core standards. The aftermath has not been pretty. And they were right.  Hess...
Education
July 17, 2014

What Wakefield, NH’s School Board Is Doing to Ensure a First-Rate Education for All Its Students

As state legislatures begin to pick up steam in their efforts to get rid of the Common Core octopus, with its many hidden tentacles reaching into the entire curriculum (under the guise of “literacy” standards), Common Core advocates have come up with...
Education
July 16, 2014

Pioneer Institute Statement on Senate Charter School Cap Lift Vote

The Senate Turns Back the Clock Today, the Massachusetts State Senate voted against S2262, a bill to lift the cap on charter school enrollment in the state’s lowest-performing public school districts. The Senate bill would have tied charter school expansion to full...
Education
July 15, 2014

Representative misrepresenting

Chalk this one up to elected officials representing people other than their constituents, Rep. Aaron Vega of Holyoke tells MassLive.com all the reasons why he opposed the charter school cap lift in the House a few weeks back. Vega was asked if he...
Education
July 8, 2014

On Common Core, a Study in Contrasts

In a front-page article in June, the Washington Post featured corporate billionaire Bill Gates as a political sinner who deserves sainthood because his heart is in the right place.  He bought off every organization in the country and colluded with the U.S....
Education
July 2, 2014

7 Major Differences between No Child Left Behind and Common Core/Race to the Top

1. Focus of Accountability: Schools or Teachers Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools and school districts were held accountable based on student scores. Under Common Core/Race to the Top (CC/RttT), teachers are to be held accountable based on varying percentages of...