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The Limits of Data

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Here at Pioneer, we are all for data-driven decision-making, and rely on publicly-available data all the time. But that can be a problem when the data being provided is garbage… or worse. In case you missed, the Globe is in the midst of a slow-motion evisceration of the state’s Probation Department and their article on Sunday was a stunner. It revealed, among other, things that the Probation Department was using a non-standard measure of caseload (measuring all cases open during a calendar year) and when the nationally-accepted standard was put in place, caseload dropped from 167 cases per officer to ‘about 40’. From reading the piece, and the series, its clear that Probation has operated off the grid of oversight […]

Day 10: Decentralize decisions in failing urban districts

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Sometimes failure is not just in a handful of schools, but in the majority of a district’s schools. In those cases, a broader application of key principles of the 1993 Reform Act (empowering principals and teachers, clear measurement of student performance and accountability for performance, and competition for students) is needed. One way to do that is to pilot a fully decentralized network of schools that are given charter flexibility at the school level. Angus McBeath, the former superintendent of the Edmonton Public School System, took a school system 30 percent larger than Boston’s and gave district schools the same freedoms and accountability that charters have. The so-called “Edmonton model” empowers principals, teachers and parents by decentralizing budgets to the […]

Day 9 – Tested innovation for failing urban schools

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Countdown to World-Class Schools summarizes 12 actions the incoming governor can take to make our schools the best in the world. All achievable. All for under $50 million. For decades, urban parents have heard state leaders announce big improvements in their schools. The reality is most urban district schools still lag in student achievement and show, at best, progress that is tragically slow for parents and their children. Not only have urban districts resisted implementation of the state’s 1993 Education Reform Act (MERA) by not aligning local curricula with the state frameworks, but they have not taken advantage of important tools in MERA: Decentralized management to empower principals and teachers to make meaningful decisions about how to achieve results, and […]

Day 8: Give Urban Kids Access to a Rich Liberal Arts Curriculum

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Countdown to World-Class Schools summarizes 12 actions the incoming governor can take to make our schools the best in the world. All achievable. All for under $50 million. I wrote this blog entry a couple of days ago, before yesterday’s disastrous vote by the Massachusetts Board of Education to adopt national standards that are (1) in many ways very different from and (2) weaker than our now dead-letter state standards for what is taught in our schools. The punch line is at the bottom. Since 1993, Springfield has received well over $2 billion, Worcester over $1.5 billion and Boston another $2 billion in state aid supplementing local education funding. The percentage of students passing the MCAS test varies greatly by […]

Day 7: Strengthen STEM standards, instruction and assessments

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While our student gains in math and science over the past decade and a half are impressive, we need to address the lower percentage of students who are “advanced” in these critical subjects. Yesterday, I noted what we can do to improve the quality of our math and science teaching corps. Today, I want to focus on a number of steps we can take to strengthen STEM standards, instructional practices and assessments. Strengthen the K-12 Mathematics Standards. Well-structured academic standards logically progress from less difficult or complex topics to more difficult or complex topics, both within a grade and also from grade to grade. We could improve our already best-in-nation math and science standards by paying close attention to transitions […]