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Massachusetts: Flatlined on national tests?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byEdWeek‘s Erik Robelen is reporting on the just released national test data. He notes that they show that 4th and 8th graders have inched up in mathematics, but the results are more mixed in reading, with 4th grade scores flat compared with two years ago. Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and current chairman of the national tests’ National Assessment Governing Board, David P. Driscoll, is paraphrased as saying that: the nation has made major gains in math over the past two decades, but that in reading, the growth has been “quite small.” And he called the 4th grade reading scores “deeply disappointing,” noting that they have been flat since 2007… Mr. Driscoll, a former commissioner of education in Massachusetts, highlighted […]
Could Solyndra have happened in Massachusetts?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency, News, Transparency /bySolyndra could serve as a textbook case for the dangers of government trying to turn investor, mixing ideology, economics and the appearance of favoritism. The Department of Energy’s $535 million loan guarantee also seems to echo Massachusetts’ own failed investment in luring Evergreen Solar to Devens. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Solyndra, which manufactured solar panels and was a poster child for President Barack Obama’s green jobs push, is now being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over allegations that executives knowingly misled the government to secure the loan guarantee. These are currently just allegations and Solyndra executives are innocent until proven guilty, but the matter is further complicated by the fact that the company had financial ties with the White House, […]
Horses for Courses; Fire Trucks for Fires
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakI’ve written previously about Boston About Results and I’ll repeat my recommendation. It’s fascinating to see what city government does when its presented as data, rather than anecdote. Here are some facts that caught my eye…. The Boston Fire Department responds to approximately 70,000 incidents per year. How many of those responses are for fires? Less than 6,000. (To be fair, that count is for actual fires, not false alarms, so that low percentage shouldn’t be construed as a knock on BFD.). How about medical incidents? Those are much more prevalent — about 40 – 45% of incidents are medical in nature. (See Boston About Results for the above data and more.) So, why are we sending 10 – 25+ […]
Halloween, Headless Horsemen and Literature in our Schools
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Common Core, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byThe Headless Horseman, painting by John Quidor. In this season of ghosts and goblins, it seems only appropriate to think about the stories that for many generations served to frame our imagination of what Halloween should look like. For generations, schoolchildren of all backgrounds learned about literature and life in America via Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Herman Meville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. That list is a partial trajectory of the American spirit. On Halloween a different sort of literary spirit has […]
BPS Meets the Market
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakBoston Public Schools are competing for students, whether you like it or not. In the early 1970s, the system had enrollment of over 90,000. This school year, they only have enrollment of just over 57,000. Just under a quarter of the school-aged children are educated outside the district – private, parochial, charter, METCO, special ed placement, or homeschooling. If the BPS wants to stem this long-term trend, it needs to compete for students (and parents). And that message seems to have gotten through. For years, the BPS has had access to an incredible wealth of data about what parents want – what do parents pick as their most desirable schools in the dreaded school lottery? They seem to tapping into […]