Social-Emotional Learning: K-12 Education as New-Age Nanny State

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Social-emotional learning (SEL) has been billed as a transformational tool that will propel students to greater academic achievement and personal fulfillment.  Unfortunately, the research evidence to back up these claims is thin and unpersuasive. Moreover, the risks SEL poses to student privacy and health are significant.

Preparing Students for a Future in Fintech

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While the finance and insurance industries are changing rapidly, course requirements and skill-building opportunities at Massachusetts higher education institutions are still evolving to meet job demands, presenting an opportunity for state higher education institutions to create programs that give Massachusetts students a competitive edge in the age of fintech – diverse digital technology changes impacting banking, insurance, and other sectors of the finance industry.

Charter School Funding in Massachusetts: A Primer

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A new Pioneer Institute study finds that foundation districts are largely unaffected by students who choose to transfer to charter schools.

Axioms of Excellence: Kumon and the Russian School of Mathematics

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At a time of declining state and national math proficiency, after-school math programs offer a viable option for quickly increasing the number of mathematically competent students. In this study, Pioneer Institute profiles two such programs: Kumon and the Russian School of Mathematics.

Common Core, School Choice and Rethinking Standards-Based Reform

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While U.S. academic performance has declined since the broad implementation of Common Core, school choice programs are increasingly hamstrung by regulations that require private schools to adopt a single curriculum standards-based test as a condition for receiving public money, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

Is Two-Tiered Education on the Rise in Massachusetts?

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A review of the performance of Massachusetts students on National Assessment of Academic Progress 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade math tests shows that overall improvement has stalled in the last decade, but the percentage of students scoring in the top category has steadily increased.

No Longer A City On A Hill: Massachusetts Degrades Its K–12 History Standards

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The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education should reject a proposed rewrite of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework in its entirety and immediately restore the state’s 2003 framework, considered among the strongest in the country, according to a new research paper titled, No Longer a City on a Hill: Massachusetts Degrades Its K-12 U.S. History Standards, published by Pioneer Institute. 

UMass Has a Spending Problem

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The University of Massachusetts claims admissions policies that favor out-of-state students over in-state residents are required as a result of insufficient state funding growth, but the data tell a different story.

Inter-district Choice in Massachusetts

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With little fanfare or controversy, Massachusetts’ inter-district school choice program has allowed students to access better schools and spurred competition between districts, but the 27-year-old choice law should be updated to ensure the program’s continuing success.

No IDEA: How Massachusetts Blocks Federal Special Education Funding for Private and Religious School Students

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Over the past dozen years, thousands of private and religious school students in Massachusetts have been denied hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of special education services to which they are entitled under federal law.

Remarks at 25th Anniversary Event for the Massachusetts Education Reform Act

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Massachusetts Education Reform Act co-author and former Senate President Tom Birmingham praised the historic success that has been achieved since the law was enacted in 1993, but expressed concern that the Commonwealth is veering away from basic principles of the law that produced that success at a State House event marking the 25th anniversary of the Education Reform Act.

2018 Proposed Revisions to Massachusetts History and Social Studies Frameworks

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This public statement addresses the draft of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework that was released for public comment in January. The authors argue that the new standards would follow in the footsteps of recently adopted English, math, and science standards by representing a decline in content and coherence compared to their predecessors.

Mediocrity 2.0: Massachusetts Rebrands Common Core ELA and Math

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The 2017 update of Massachusetts’ English and math K-12 academic standards represents further deterioration in English, while the math standards are essentially unchanged from the 2010 version, according to the first independent evaluation of the newly revised standards. The 2010 standards, which were based on Common Core, led to declining scores on national tests in both English and math.

Cristo Rey Schools: A Model of 21st-Century Catholic Education

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This paper examines Cristo Rey schools, why they work, how they work and what parts of their education/business design can be successfully transferred to other Catholic high schools. It will look at the Cristo Rey Network, a cooperative organization formed to standardize the Cristo Rey approach, offer resources to the individual schools and help promote the spread of Cristo Rey schools to cities that can support them.

Amicus Brief: Jane Doe v. Peyser

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Through its public interest law initiative PioneerLegal, Pioneer…

Expanding Educational Opportunities: Three Models for Extended Summer Enrichment Programs in Massachusetts

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The last of a three-part series by Pioneer Institute on summer learning shows that Massachusetts schools establishing summer enrichment programs to close the achievement gap between lower-income and higher-income students can have a greater impact by eventually expanding the program across multiple summers or for a full year. This final paper introduces three types of extended summer enrichment models: 12-month programs, multi-year summer-only programs, and multi-year, year-round programs.

The Healing Hand: Modeling Catholic Medical Vocational-Technical Schooling

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This study explores whether medical vocational-technical education could be a tool to help Boston-area Catholic schools address declining enrollment and also provide economically disadvantaged students with skills that are in high demand among employers.

Homeschooling: The Ultimate School Choice

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This report recommends that states do more to acknowledge the…

Best Practices in Massachusetts Charter Schools: What We Know Now

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This report summarizes the research-based truth about Massachusetts charter public schools, focusing on the ideas that were most prominent in the charter school ballot initiative debate. The data that follow are taken from a series of papers published by Pioneer Institute over the course of 2016. This report illustrates that Massachusetts charter public schools do not drain resources from district schools, they outperform the school districts from which their students come, and have attrition rates that are lower than or equal to those districts.

Attrition, Dropout and Student Mobility in District and Charter Schools: A Demographic Report

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This paper uses publicly available DESE data to explore student attrition and other forms of student movement, such as dropouts, within district and charter schools. It is not a direct response to the now dated MTA report, but it does explore the validity of the claim that Massachusetts charter public schools have higher attrition than their district counterparts because these schools “select out” or “push out” weaker students in an effort to produce higher test scores.

Laboratories of Democracy: How States Get Excellent K–12 U.S. History Standards

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The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the states that have designed strong history standards and note what has made them exceptional so other states might do the same. They include Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina.

What Goes Up Must Come Down: New, Lower K-12 Science Standards for Massachusetts

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This paper, the second of a two-part analysis, finds that Massachusetts’ Next Generation Science Standards adopted last spring by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) fall short. The authors conclude they are unclear, unnecessarily complicated, miss important content, and fail to make important connections.

Advanced Placement Opportunities and Success in Boston Charter and District Schools: A Demographic Report

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This report shows that Boston charter public school students are more likely than their counterparts in non-exam Boston Public Schools (BPS) to take Advanced Placement (AP) courses and tests, and Boston charters have also done a better job of helping traditionally underserved students pass AP tests.

Massachusetts Charter Public Schools Best Practices in Expansion and Replication

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This paper considers what the limited expansion of some charter organizations in the Commonwealth has looked like so far, and explores the different legal and policy conditions that enable large charter and educational management organizations to flourish. It does so with an eye to understanding whether Massachusetts might benefit from policy changes that encourage the expansion of operators already in the state and provide incentives for successful outside operators to bring their programs to the Commonwealth. Recommendations include providing pathways for new, innovative providers to enter the state.

Massachusetts Charter Public Schools English Language Learners: Demographic and Achievement Trends

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The following paper describes how charter schools in Massachusetts and especially in Boston enroll and serve English language learners. Another report in this series provides similar information about students with disabilities. This paper provides enrollment, attrition, and achievement data for English language learners in charter schools across the Commonwealth, with a concentration on Boston and Gateway Cities such as Lawrence.

Massachusetts Charter Public Schools: Students with Special Educational Needs: Demographic and Achievement Trends

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The report finds that charters (especially in Boston) are enrolling an increasing number of special needs students - and those students are performing well compared to their district counterparts. The report also explores attrition rates and facilities funding.

After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core

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The workforce-preparation focus of the K-12 English and math standards known as Common Core puts them at odds with Catholic education, and the standards should not be adopted by parochial schools. In “After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core,” authors Anthony Esolen, Dan Guernsey, Jane Robbins, and Kevin Ryan argue that the national standards’ unrelenting focus on skills that transfer directly to the modern work world conflicts with Catholic schools’ academic, spiritual, and moral mission.

Massachusetts Charter Public Schools: Best Practices from the Phoenix Charter Academies

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Phoenix Academies, a network of three Massachusetts public schools, is using strategies such as “relentless support” to help at-risk students not only graduate from high school, but also succeed in college.

Expanding Educational Opportunities: Best Practices in U.S. Summer Enrichment Programs

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This report is the second of a three-part Pioneer Institute series of studies on summer enrichment programs with a particular focus on opportunities for disadvantaged students. It highlights best practices in the field by profiling a range of summer programs. The authors urge summer enrichment programs to partner with entities that help place disadvantaged children in educational programs to help the schools and non-profits recruit students. They also urge programs run by schools to use academic-year faculty.

Massachusetts Charter Public Schools: Best Practices in Character Education

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This report explores two high performing Massachusetts charter public schools—Abby Kelley Foster Charter School in Worcester, MA and the Brooke Charter School Network of Boston, MA—and how they approach character education. This study is part of a series of papers from Pioneer highlighting best practices in the charter sector.