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Voc-tech success with special needs students
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byWhenever I talk to education experts and people interested in education about the impressive improvements in academic performance and the low dropout rates at the state’s regional vocational-technical schools (VTEs), they often react by leaning on easy explanations such as the self-selection because they are schools of choice. The problem with that argument is that 26 stand-along regional VTEs can boast of providing an education to double the percentage of special needs students found in schools across the state. What makes the voice of experts from the regional VTE world important is that fact that the graduation rate for special needs students in regional VTEs is almost 20 percent higher than the statewide average for that category of students. Again, […]
Flawed Foundation of the Pacheco Law
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byThose seeking more competition in government have opposed the so-called Pacheco Law (see here, here, here, and here) for years. The foundation of the law puts the State Auditor in the position of prosecutor, judge, and jury for anyone seeking to allow private competition for a state-provided service. In the conceptual sense, it made little sense to have one position play such conflicting roles in a supposedly objective process. In the real world, the ideological bias of the then-auditor Joe DeNucci was well-known, a steady favorite of the unions who benefited from avoiding competition. Now, our worst fears have been confirmed. Following DeNucci’s retirement, a new Auditor, Suzanne Bump, brought in the National State Auditors Association to review the operations […]
Cracks in the national standards consensus
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Common Core, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byBack in the fall, I mentioned that I thought that after the election we were going to see a lot of cracks in the façade of unity on national standards, and perhaps a separate group coalescing around Texas, as the point in opposing national standards. Last month, I was in Texas as the Lone Star state’s commissioner of education Robert Scott advanced with State Representative Daniel Huberty a bill that would prohibit Texas from adopting the national standards or national assessments. That same day, they rolled out the most ambitious set of math standards in the country—standards that surpassed even the quality of the once-nation-leading Massachusetts and California math standards. Now Texas has the best academic K-12 standards in the […]
Vocational-technical schools working with business
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byThe local business community has always been heavily involved in our public institutions, through voluntary associations, of course, but also ensuring the good functioning and affordability of a once very robust network of community hospitals as well as our public schools. Throughout the robust education reform debates of the 1990s, figures like William S. Edgerly of State Street Corporation and Ray Stata of Analog Devices brought to bear the view of employers who were wedded to their communities, to a strong liberal arts foundation, and to the idea of preparing students for the workforce. The state’s vocational-technical (VTE) schools have clearly put an emphasis on building relationships with the business community, for resource needs, connections for employment, and for input […]
Choosing to succeed in regional vocational-technical schools
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byWhat sets Massachusetts’s education reform efforts apart from those in other states can be reduced to three things. The reforms begun with the 1993 landmark law: Put into place were comprehensive in that they spanned content, accountability, and choice. Massachusetts did not put all of its eggs into one basket, avoiding the stale conversation about whether choice or standards was the real driver of improvements in student achievement. Recognized what the state could do well and left to the local school districts and individual schools what was best left to them. For example, the Board and Department worked to develop academic goals and teacher and student tests to make sure the schools delivered results, but they did not prescribe teaching […]