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Answering the Question No One is Asking

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Hot off the presses, the Needham Times brings us this vital piece of gubernatorial race insight: “If these two gentlemen were running a summer camp for girls I would want send my daughter to go to the one being run by Deval Patrick,” Khoury said.

Well, so much for objective analysis : MA DESE and RttT one more time

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The Secretary and Commissioner of Education have repeatedly said that they would not adopt national standards if they were weaker than Massachusetts state academic standards. I long ago stopped believing, even as friends in the media and elected officials told me otherwise. Even as recently as May 20th, Secretary Reville noted to GateHouseNews Service: “There’s no plan whatsoever with how we’re going to proceed on this,” said Reville. “There’s simply an opportunity for us to play a national leadership role.” He said the state had “absolutely no plan to replace MCAS.” On June 2nd, Commissioner Chester put out a press release on the Department’s website declaring: Our curriculum experts have worked closely with the developers of the Common Core Standards […]

Pioneer = conservative, liberal or libertarian?

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As you probably know, Boston.com has kindly invited me to blog on their website regarding how to move our state and country forward on education. It’s called Rock the Schoolhouse, and I’m pleased to have the opportunity. As you might expect, several commenters ask about Pioneer, and often they ask if this is a conservative, a liberal, libertarian organization or some fudge among the three. Such was the query today from “Abrahamson”. I had posted a blog noting that elected officials who don’t support school choice are often the products of school choice or private schools. Abrahamson queried me on two points: (1) The conservatives always preach that the government is not supposed to guarantee equality, that those who work […]

School choice for the POTUS

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Politico reports today that the “pool” followed POTUS and FLOTUS to the Sidwell Friends private school. “We are told that POTUS and FLOTUS were both in the motorcade and are at the school. Your pooler assumes the visit is some sort of end-of-the-school-year event. But we have not been told what they are here for. Just that they are attending one of Sasha’s school activities.” Take a moment to look at Sidwell’s site. I am glad the President can afford the $30,000 tuition. Simple question – and it is the same one David Gergen asked Deval Patrick before he was elected Governor in 2006: This question: when you were young, you won a scholarship to go off to the Milton […]

National standards talking points

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Across the country, the NGA and the CCSSO will be using these talking points over and over again. They will say that the proposed national standards are: 1) Aligned with college and career expectations; 2) Internationally benchmarked against high performing nations; 3) Reflective of vital cross-disciplinary skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, logical reasoning, communication, and team work; 4) Fewer in scope and deeper in meaning; and 5) Clearly written and user-friendly to educators. In Massachusetts, be prepared for them to focus on #4. Fewer they are right. Deeper they will claim.