Education

The final version of the Common Core standards was released in June 2010. Also released at the same time was a report containing the signatures of 24 members of the Common Core Validation Committee, a committee appointed in the summer of 2009 to review the various drafts of the standards and to assure the public that the standards in mathematics and English language arts were research-based, rigorous, and internationally competitive.

The fate of poetry in the school curriculum may seem like an odd subject for a Pioneer Institute report. But we are struck by the absence of comments on what constitutes literary study in the schools from organizations that might be expected to have a professional interest in the school curriculum (e.g., National Council of Teachers of English, International Reading Association, Association of Supervisors and Curriculum Developers) and from higher education sources that might be expected to have a discipline-based interest in the topic (e.g., American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Modern Language Association).

Testimony to the Missouri Elementary and Secondary Education Committee provided in February 2014.

Testimony to the Kansas House Standing Committee on Education in February 2014.

The pages that follow describe the history and impact of Match Corps in an attempt to capture this important educational innovation. This paper raises and answers questions about why Match’s tutoring models are so uncommonly effective and what that means for their potential impact on education beyond Match and beyond Boston. Finally, this work ends with recommendations for what policymakers and others should learn from Match, which has changed the lives of many students and stands to impact perceptions of what really makes a difference in schools.

Known throughout the Commonwealth and the nation as a network of high-performing charter public schools, Match Education takes a highly specific approach to education reform. Match aims to help students who have been traditionally underserved in the public school system achieve at very high levels, and it does so by taking a structured, ‘No Excuses’ approach to education.

"School Vouchers in Washington, DC: Lessons for Massachusetts" was presented by Patrick Wolf in 2013.

This report tells the story of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, paying special attention to lessons that can be applied to educational improvement in the urban areas of Massachusetts. Section 1 describes the design and initial implementation of the program. Section 2 outlines the main features of the rigorous experimental evaluation of the program’s impacts on participating students and parents. The main results of that evaluation are presented in Section 3. Section 4 concludes by discussing the implications of the OSP results for possible school choice reforms in Massachusetts.

While the remarkable turnaround in New Orleans was accelerated - and perhaps even made possible - by the very storm that nearly destroyed the city, it still has education experts looking for lessons that might be applied elsewhere. This paper looks at the public school reform efforts of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and its impact on student achievement. It also offers recommendations on how urban public schools in Massachusetts, which historically underperforms the commonwealth’s suburban school districts, could benefit from New Orleans’ experience.

By signing on to national standards and the assessments that will accompany them, participating states have ceded their autonomy to design and oversee the implementation of their own standards and tests. The implications of ceding this autonomy are varied. Not only do some states risk sacrificing high quality standards for national standards that may be less rigorous, but all states are sacrificing their ability to inform what students learn.