THE NORTHAMPTON HIGH SCHOOL student union surveyed students last year, asking them what they thought were the school’s biggest problems. “We got a lot of people saying sex ed,” said 16-year-old Brynt Goggins in a story by the Daily Hampshire Gazette that suggested students across Hampshire County are dissatisfied with the way sex education is […]
Education
Posted inEducation
Boston’s community college problem
Less than 3 percent of newly enrolled, full-time students graduate on time from community colleges in Boston: 2 percent at Bunker Hill Community College and 1 percent at Roxbury Community College. It’s college decision time, and most students in Boston Public Schools will become part of a broken system of “well-meaning” adults, who are severely […]
Posted inEducation
Boston superintendent gets super relocation allowance
INCOMING BOSTON school superintendent Brenda Cassellius signed a three-year contract with the city that provides some of the standard perks for a top-level hire, including reimbursement for moving expenses involved in her relocation from Minnesota to Boston. But the agreement goes a step further than that with an unusual provision that seems to anticipate address […]
Posted inEducation
A recipe for success for new Boston superintendent
SCHOOL HAS JUST finished, with teachers and students alike having engaged in the usual end of year rituals: cleaning out desks and classrooms, reflecting on successes and lost opportunities, and saying goodbye to friends and mentors until next year. The end of June will also lead to a new beginning however: the arrival of Dr. […]
Posted inEducation
Riley casts vision for education change
WHEN JEFF RILEY took the reins as state education commissioner early last year he suggested it was time to turn the page on 25 years of education reform efforts, pointing to stalled achievement scores, a stubbornly persistent achievement gap, and an unhealthy focus on testing. But exactly what he had in mind for the next […]
Posted inOpinion
Where do charters fit in ed funding debate?
AT THE STATE LEGISLATURE’S early-spring Joint Committee on Education hearing on various proposed K-12 funding bills, the stories from scores of school districts were depressingly familiar. New Bedford is facing layoffs of teachers, custodians, nurses, and counselors. Lowell is looking at increased class sizes, lost programs and paraprofessionals, and deferred building maintenance and technology upgrades. […]
Posted inEducation
Nearly $1 billion funding difference in education bills
SINCE JANUARY, when two proposals to update the state’s 26-year-old formula for funding Massachusetts schools were filed, one by Gov. Charlie Baker and another by a group of lawmakers led by Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, it was clear that there was a big difference between the bills in how much new state money they allocated for […]
Posted inEducation
Funding plus reform right equation for education legislation
NOTWITHSTANDING JOHN ADAMS’S almost sacred words enshrined in the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was a Johnny come lately with respect to state aid to education, with its earliest efforts being enacted after World War II. In 1993, we changed all that, recommitting in earnest to Adams’s great dictate that the Commonwealth’s government “cherish” […]
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A Swift return
IT’S BEEN A long time since Jane Swift left the public stage, retreating home to Western Massachusetts after a rocky 21-month tenure as governor. Just how much time has passed? Earlier this month the twin daughters she delivered a month after being handed the gubernatorial reins — making history and national headlines as the first […]
Posted inOpinion
Dartmouth’s link to today’s college oversight bills
SMALL COLLEGES continue to teeter, some to fall. Their students have suffered. The Legislature has taken note: 60 members have filed “An Act Relative to Education Transparency,” which requires “Massachusetts colleges and universities . . . public and private” to “produce annually a report on their fiscal health and stability.” Failure to produce is punishable […]