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Mass. Ed Reform: Of the Business Alliance, By the Business Alliance, and for the Business Alliance
Here, in this editorial, the Boston Globe plays its cheerleading role for the Business Alliance and the ed reform they have wrought.

SOME 55,000 members of the class of 2003 -- the first to face the state's high-stakes exit examination -- are now departing their high schools with well-earned, meaningful diplomas in hand. Their efforts, and those of their teachers, resulted in a 92 percent pass rate, reason enough to leave behind the bitter debates about the fairness of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests. The Education Reform Act of 1993 created the opening for accountability through high-stakes testing. But education reform, signed into law 10 years ago on June 18, was largely designed to reshape school funding and create academic standards. The law provided many methods to improve the quality of education. Now that concerns over MCAS are waning, other aspects of reform can be given the attention they deserve.


The effort to remove headmasters and principals from collective bargaining was one of the hardest-fought battles on the field of education reform, says former state representative Mark Roosevelt, a main author of the law. Superintendents and school boards were given the authority to use one-year contracts, strict performance evaluations, and merit pay to motivate principals. But no one in the state Department of Education or elsewhere has tracked precisely how school systems apply the provision.

Roosevelt estimates that fewer than half the state's school systems use the law as it was intended to remove poorly performing principals or reward good ones. David Driscoll, the state's commissioner of education, is just slightly more optimistic, giving the effort a ''B minus.''

Decentralized decision making -- especially greater independence for principals -- remains essential to education reform. But that strategy will not lead to higher-quality classrooms if timid or distracted superintendents leave weak principals in place.

The education reform law also stressed the importance of empirical research to support or reject educational assumptions. But good data are still rare on the effects of class size, theories of learning, successful methods of teaching, and the cost-effectiveness of educational programs. The ever-shrinking Department of Education now employs about 500 people, about half its staffing level in the 1980s. Regional offices have been shuttered. And field researchers are few and far between.

''The promise of research has not been fulfilled at all,'' acknowledges Driscoll.

Developing teachers

The effort to improve teaching practices through professional development is another underemphasized area of education reform. Roosevelt says that the authors of education reform envisioned a state Department of Education that would provide intensive guidance on ways to improve instructional methods. But professional development remains an erratic area in many school systems, a condition that Roosevelt calls a ''significant flaw.''

The funding picture in the classroom is considerably brighter. Thomas Birmingham, the former Senate president and another principal author of the education reform law, worked tirelessly with educators to determine the minimum manpower a district would need to meet the new academic standards. This ''foundation budget'' remains at the core of education reform, especially the commitment to expand opportunities for low-income students.

Proponents of education reform argue convincingly that it costs more to educate young people whose lives are complicated by poverty, poor medical care, and instability in their family lives or neighborhoods. The foundation budget, therefore, provides poor districts with sufficient state funding to hire three additional teachers for each 100 low-income students as well as other educational enhancements. This poverty differential translates into an average per pupil spending of about $8,000 in poor communities, higher than the roughly $6,600 per pupil average in better-off communities.

Legislators kept faith with this principle by funding the difference between the foundation budget and what communities can raise through local property taxes. Even now, faced with a $3 billion deficit, both the House and the Senate have stayed the course. While the House voted to make some painful cuts in local education aid, both branches crafted budgets that ensure that no community falls below the per pupil foundation budget. Governor Romney's budget also revealed a willingness to maintain the funding formula, making him the fourth successive governor to recognize the centrality of the foundation budget.

All students benefit

Support for education reform wavered at times during the past 10 years. Some suburban leaders questioned whether their school systems received a sufficient share of the so-called Chapter 70 funds. Some politicians complained that the MCAS tests undermined the futures of minority students, whose failure rates are higher than those of white students. But most came to see that nearly every student in the state would benefit from a renewed emphasis on education. And that includes members of the class of 2003 who have failed the high-stakes exam but are still welcome to take advantage of remedial opportunities until they can pass.

Some citizens still argue in court that the per pupil foundation budget is too low and therefore a violation of the state's constitutional duty to educate its young people. Others whisper that the passing grade on MCAS is too low and that the bar should be raised. No one, however, is calling for a return to the standardless pre-1993 era.

The late Jack Rennie, an early supporter of education reform and founder of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, wisely argued a decade ago that increased funding for education must coincide with increased accountability and bold school reform measures. Much remains undone. But 10 year later, his vision is palpably real.


— Editorial
Success in the Schools
Boston Globe
July 9, 2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/160/editorials/Success_in_the_schools+.shtml

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