Education

Beginning in the late 1930s, the confluence of a number of social, ideological, religious, and demographic factors led to the rise of Orthodox day schools in Boston and elsewhere. In the ensuing decades, the Jewish community migrated to the Boston suburbs and even further to the west.

Since 2003, enrollment in public schools in Massachusetts has fallen by 35,000 students, or 4%. The decline has occurred even while enrollment in the rest of the country has increased. The early years of this enrollment decline were documented in a Pioneer Institute report in 2008.

I have heard, read, or seen these statements within the last year. What fascinated and concerned me then and continues to fascinate and concern me today is the level, the preponderance, and the consistency of this vitriol. I have come to a singular conclusion: race continues to be a primary way many people construct, deconstruct, and understand meaning in our country today. Race and the role it plays in America's history continue to impact every individual, everyday.

Testimony to the Utah 2012 Education Interim Committee in August 2012.

"Pioneer Institute Report on History in Schools" was presented in 2012.

The first part of this report looks closely at the background, structure, and function of the DESE in an attempt to understand how the agency has operated, how it currently operates, and what challenges, if any, the structure and operation of DESE pose for its ability to effectively exercise its increased authority. The second part recounts the recent history of the Department, especially its role in implementing the first wave of education reform, which came in the form of the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act. In doing so, this work uncovers some of DESE's strengths and weaknesses in an attempt to highlight potential obstacles to successfully implementing the second wave of reform.

"School Choice Survey" was presented in 2012.

This paper explores the extent and distribution of poverty in Massachusetts's schools and then examines the performance of low-income-students in urban and rural areas.

This is the third in a series of Pioneer Institute policy briefs on scholarship tax credit programs. The first, in 2007, was a groundbreaking study of scholarship tax credit programs in Florida, Minnesota, and Arizona. The second report, published in 2010, built on that research in assessing Rhode Island's Corporate Scholarship Tax Credit (CSTC) program, which became law in 2007. That study provided a review of the CSTC program's legislative history, program design and impact and offered recommendations to policymakers based on Rhode Island's experience.

Thought leaders in education, especially in Massachusetts, rarely acknowledge the precedent that Catholic education sets and the model that it has long provided in offering high quality educational options to students of all backgrounds. This could be because many Catholic schools serve poor and minority students with great success, thus revealing the comparatively low quality of too many public schools that do not.