Tom Birmingham

Guest Contributor, Pioneer Institute

Stories by Tom Birmingham

Falling short on school standards and funding

Education/ Opinion

Falling short on school standards and funding

As Mass. celebrates 25th anniversary of 1993 reform law, we're squandering our gains

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AS MASSACHUSETTS MARKS the 25th anniversary of a landmark Education Reform Act that propelled us to the head of the national class in public education, the Commonwealth’s latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are mildly encouraging.  But they alone cannot erase what has been nearly a decade of troubling news on(...)

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Time to lift up Boston’s voc-tech high school

Education/ Opinion

Time to lift up Boston’s voc-tech high school

Years of missteps are leaving students behind

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“SUCCESS IS TO BE measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life,” said Booker T. Washington, the famous turn-of-the-20th-century black educator, “as by the obstacles… overcome.” February is both Black History and Career and Technical Education month. No figure in America’s past bridged those two worlds like Booker Washington, who was(...)

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Our schools ignore US history at our peril

Education/ Opinion

Our schools ignore US history at our peril

State must make good on requirement for history instruction and testing

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ABOUT 25 YEARS AGO, as a member of the Massachusetts Senate, I co-authored the Massachusetts Education Reform Act. Drafting a complex bill with such far-reaching consequences requires significant compromise, but one thing my counterparts in the House of Representatives and then-Gov. Bill Weld all agreed upon was the importance of educating students about our nation’s history.(...)

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Will district schools embrace charter-like reforms?

Education/ Opinion

Will district schools embrace charter-like reforms?

Burden now falls on local school leaders to deliver results

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LONG BEFORE MORE than $40 million was spent last year making the cases for and against charter public school expansion, I was skeptical about using a statewide ballot initiative to decide the question. I believe ballot initiatives are best reserved for instances where the Legislature is flouting public opinion, and that wasn’t so with Massachusetts(...)

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Voc-tech schools are a Mass. success story

Education/ Opinion

Voc-tech schools are a Mass. success story

4,400 students are on waitlists; let's expand schools that work

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MASSACHUSETTS VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL high schools are like the person who toils for years, only to be termed an “overnight sensation” when he or she finally achieves recognition. For over a decade the schools have quietly compiled an impressive record, and the time has come to expand them. Voc-tech schools were once among the staunchest opponents of MCAS(...)

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A school-choice double standard

Education/ Opinion

A school-choice double standard

METCO supporters should also embrace charters

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THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is right to have long supported the Metropolitan Council for Economic Opportunity (METCO), through which more than 3,300 Boston and Springfield students attend school in surrounding suburbs each year.  METCO has two basic goals: to bring diversity to suburban communities and to provide urban families(...)

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About-face

Education/ Summer 2010

About-face

Diane Ravitch's change of heart on testing and charter schools

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The Death and Life of The Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education By Diane RavitchNew York, Basic Books, 283 pages diane ravitch is the preeminent historian of American public education. For decades she has played Cassandra, challenging the received wisdom and questioning trendy notions of what does and doesn’t help(...)

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