STUDENTS FROM FAMILIES with financial means are two and half times more likely to earn a college degree in Massachusetts than students who come from low-income families. This disparity isn’t breaking news, nor are the consequences, which include high levels of income inequality and enormous racial wealth gaps. What is new is that there is actually something, […]
Elementary and Secondary Education
Posted inOpinion
All school committee members deserve compensation
MASSACHUSETTS EDUCATION Commissioner Jeff Riley’s push to have elementary students back in classrooms, which required school committee action in each district, shows just how important school committees are to public education. Indeed, one of the many lessons of the ongoing pandemic is the vital role that local school committees play as policymaking bodies across the […]
Posted inThe Download
State won’t require 11th grade MCAS
In an attempt to reach a compromise on whether to administer the MCAS this year, Education Commissioner Jeff Riley may have pleased no one. Teachers’ unions and school officials had been pressuring state education officials to scrap the MCAS standardized tests this year. Riley announced Thursday that 11th graders will not have to take the […]
Posted inEducation
State won’t require 11th grade MCAS
IN AN ATTEMPT to reach a compromise on whether to administer the MCAS this year, Education Commissioner Jeff Riley may have pleased no one. Teachers’ unions and school officials had been pressuring state education officials to scrap the MCAS standardized tests this year. Riley announced Thursday that 11th graders will not have to take the […]
Posted inOpinion
Time to rein in Riley’s authoritarianism
ON MARCH 5, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education took the extraordinary step of granting state Education Commissioner Jeff Riley unprecedented power over local communities. The majority of the board voted to allow Riley to “determine when hybrid and remote models will no longer count towards meeting the required student learning time hours.” […]
Posted inOpinion
A pandemic is wrong time to dump MCAS
IN AN ERA of heightened partisan divide, it is heartening to see our Democratic President and our Republican Governor in alignment on whether it is essential that children be tested this spring to measure the pandemic’s impact on students’ academic performance. The Biden administration recently announced that state education departments would have flexibility surrounding standardized […]
Posted inOpinion
It’s not (only) about the science
“I am very much confused by the petition request[ing] to open [schools] to full 5-day return while also implementing full infection control measures. This is objectively not possible.” “Any return to school is critical, as soon as possible. The science supports this.” ON THE ANNIVERSARY of our school shutdown and a year of living with […]
Posted inEducation
School building formula failing Gateway Cities
THE STATE’S SYSTEM for financing the construction of new public schools is broken. Nowhere is that more apparent than the city of Lynn. The number of students in Lynn’s schools has increased by 21 percent since 2008. Nearly half of our schools, 12 out of 26, are over 100 years old. We’ve been able to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Boston center’s gang database lists 3,853 people.
THE DIRECTOR of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center said on Tuesday that the center’s gang database is comprised of 3,853 people with active status. In a hearing held by the Boston City Council’s Public Safety Committee, David Carabin, the director of the center, said approximately “one half of 1 percent of the city’s population is […]
Posted inThe Download
Teachers unions seem to have Baker’s number
If you’re keeping score at home, Gov. Charlie Baker lost another battle on Wednesday in his long-running war with the state’s teachers unions. Baker for months had resisted the call by the unions to speed up the COVID-19 vaccination of their members. The governor insisted schools were already safe and teachers could wait their turn […]