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Oped: Education

Education
December 14, 2017

Op-ed: A Novel Solution To An Old Problem

By Tom Birmingham  | The Boston Pilot  |  December 15, 2017 We are all shaped by our own experiences. When it comes to education, I spent nine years in Chelsea public schools, followed by high school at Austin Prep, an Augustinian Catholic...
American Citizenship, Education
December 1, 2017

Op-ed: Our schools ignore US history at our peril

By Tom Birmimgham | Nov. 30, 2017 State must make good on requirement for history instruction and testing ABOUT 25 YEARS AGO, as a member of the Massachusetts Senate, I co-authored the Massachusetts Education Reform Act. Drafting a complex bill with such far-reaching consequences...
Education
November 29, 2017

Op-ed: Education establishment ruining reform

This op-ed appeared in the Boston Herald on Wednesday, November 29, 2017.  The history of education reform in Massachusetts over the past quarter century could be a case study in playing the long game. A 1993 law provided a massive increase in...
American Citizenship, Education
November 22, 2017

Op-ed: It’s Time to Strengthen—Not Reduce!—History in Our Classrooms

By Tom Birmingham This op-ed appeared in the print edition of American Heritage magazine (Volume 62 Issue 5), with a preface from the Editor. The op-ed also appeared in the MetroWest Daily News and Milford Daily News. It is painful to see...
American Citizenship, Education
October 6, 2017

Op-ed: Students should know the name Fannie Lou Hamer

This op-ed has appeared in WGBH News and The Berkshire Eagle. October 6 would be the 100th birthday of Fannie Lou Hamer, the black civil rights activist and vice-chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). She made history during Freedom Summer 1964, storming the Magnolia State’s all-white delegation at the Democratic National Convention (DNC)...
American Citizenship, Education
September 18, 2017

Op-ed: Education focus, testing on history, civics critical to well-informed citizenry

By Tom Birmingham Read this op-ed as published in WGBH News, The Springfield Republican, The Berkshire Eagle, The Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, The Lowell Sun, and The New Bedford Standard Times. BOSTON — Sunday marked the 230th anniversary of the signing of the...
Education
September 5, 2017

Op-ed: Mass. has tools to lead in online learning -- but doesn't

By Julie Young For two years running, Bloomberg’s State Innovation Index has hailed Massachusetts as the country’s most innovative state economy. Looking at such metrics as R&D; concentration of science, technology, engineering, and math employment; and numbers of science degrees, it’s no...
American Citizenship, Education
August 10, 2017

Op-ed: Let's return to educational liberty

Read this op-ed in The New Bedford Standard Times, The Lowell Sun, The Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, The Springfield Republican, The MetroWest Daily News, The Providence Journal, The Salem News. The Scituate Mariner, and the NH Union Leader. “[T]he Government of the United States …...
Education
June 27, 2017

Op-ed: Jules Verne brings children summer adventures

Read this op-ed in the Salem News, The Lowell Sun, The Patriot Ledger, Brockton Enterprise, The Fitchburg Sentinel and Enterprise, The New Bedford Standard Times, The Springfield Republican, The Berkshire Eagle, and The Federalist.  “[M]y task is to paint the whole earth, the entire...
American Citizenship, Education
June 2, 2017

Op-ed: Marshall Plan brought U.S. to apex of power

By Jamie Gass June 5, 2017 “The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones,” said American five-star General George C. Marshall. “I am deeply moved to find some means...