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Dear Abigail on History

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In what is a textbook example of bad policy on the teaching of history, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is signaling that it has no intention of instituting the MCAS requirement for US History. Currently, the state tests students on three subjects–English Language Arts, Mathematics and Science. In 2009, the US History MCAS requirement was to go into place and three years later, in 2012, graduates were supposed to have passed it. Cue the primary source material–the relevant provision in the regulations (603 CMR 30.03 (4)): (4) Students starting with the graduating class of 2012, in addition to meeting the requirements contained in 603 CMR 30.02(2) and (3), shall meet or exceed the Needs Improvement scaled […]

Fight of the Century

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Education does not only take place in our schools, though we often get caught up debating the merit of governance schemes for our bricks-and-mortar institutions. That is important. While I think digital learning is going to transform our concepts of school and learning, I also think the role of the teacher (the “master” in a way), the adult who hands off a tradition, will always be preserved. The relationship between a kid (and of course even an adult) and a teacher is a special one, which is why we spend so much time, ink and treasure trying to make sure we have effective ones. It’s also why we often have debates (and residual distrust) about things like distance learning, blended […]

Transparency, To a Point

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Just 99 days after filing the first in a series of requests, I finally received some records from the Massachusetts’ Human Resources Division yesterday. I had planned to blog again on the issue after the counter hit 100 days, so the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is saved by the bell. And what a bargain: For 6 pages, Pioneer Institute paid just $61.33 per sheet. The Division of Human Resources graciously waived the 64 cents postage fee, but a number of questions still linger. When Governor Deval Patrick took office, for example, he promised a “more modern and accessible and accountable” government. While there have been some progress (MassDot has rightly won praise for some of its transparency initiatives), transparency is often […]

No Free Lunch

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What do the recent kerfuffle involving Boloco and Boston’s new plan to collect a “voluntary” payment from tax-exempt organizations with properties valued at $15 million or more have in common? As it has already been put well on this blog, the city’s request that tax-exempt organizations pay money that they do not actually owe is essentially an example of extortion—of the city’s requesting a “voluntary” payment from certain tax-exempt organizations with the implicit threat that if the organization does not comply with the city’s demands, the city could wreak havoc on it in any number of ways. The request at the heart of the Boloco incident is no different. According to the Boston Globe’s account, the Boloco incident “all started […]