The educational scams of the past 20 years have been another abject
failure. It's time to bring in a new group of pseudo-educators who
will "add a 21st-century skills dimension to high-school
requirements."
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http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2008/06/25/patricks_plan_for_education/
SCOT LEHIGH
Patrick's plan for education
By Scot Lehigh | June 25, 2008
HIS BIG life sciences proposal finally signed into law and an industry-
pleasing BIO 2008 Convention appearance behind him, Governor Deval
Patrick is coming off a good couple of weeks.
And now he's unveiling one of his biggest initiatives yet: his
educational Readiness Project.
With the package still at the conceptual stage and its cost and
funding up in the air, witnessing the roll-out has been more like
seeing the preview of a highly anticipated movie than watching the
feature presentation itself.
The trailer is certainly enticing. With Secretary of Education-
designate Paul Reville playing a principal policy role and Gloria
Larson, Bentley College president, helping lead the financial
figuring, the cast includes some genuine stars.
And the potential is significant. Tom Birmingham, coauthor of the
state's landmark 1993 education reform law, thinks Patrick's proposal
has "a chance of restoring the primacy of education reform" on Beacon
Hill.
"It is very exciting," says the former Senate president. Still, he
adds this qualifier: "The absent center is the funding piece, because
it is going to be enormously expensive." Or, to put it another way,
we'll have to see the entire movie before we can really judge the
final production.
But so far, with one lamentable exception - the failure to boost
charter schools - the governor is tackling big subjects and proffering
im****tant ideas. Ideas like readiness schools, full-day kindergarten
and universal pre-K, a heightened focus on each individual child's
progress and preparation, enhanced anti-dropout efforts, a statewide
teacher contract, consolidated school districts, differentiated pay
for different subjects, dual enrollment in high school and community
college, and (phased-in) free community college.
Not only will there be no watering down of the MCAS graduation
requirement, the administration wants additional measures to assure
student mastery of crucial knowledge.
"We know that there is a set of skills and aptitudes that young people
must have to succeed that includes but goes beyond what is in the
current MCAS," Patrick said in a Monday interview.
Added Reville, also present: "This should resolve once and for all any
doubt that there might have been about where this administration was
relative to the MCAS. This re****t brings us four square behind high
standards, the stakes associated with those standards, and a
recognition that even the standards that we currently have don't go
far enough."
The governor and Reville hope to add a 21st-century skills dimension
to high-school requirements, something that might take the form of a
senior project that requires interdisciplinary skills and an oral
presentation.
When it comes to the flexible, autonomous readiness schools, they will
be asking teachers to change the way they work, moving away from
contracts that extensively regulate the school day and toward one that
permits wide latitude and flexibility.
"The concept is to have what is bargained kept to the essence,"
Patrick said. His list: salaries, hours, benefits, and due process of
dismissal. Similarly, system-improving flexibility is one of the ideas
behind a statewide teacher contract. Such a contract might use higher
pay as a way to get better teachers in the schools where they are most
needed, Reville says.
If neglected charter schools are an im****tant outside-the-system
experiment, Patrick's approach represents an inside-the-system effort,
an attempt to make im****tant reforms in cooperation and consultation
with the education establishment.
So here's the question: Can the governor achieve the sweeping changes
he contemplates through a process that puts a premium on winning
agreement from the various components of that establishment?
"If the goal is to have every stakeholder sign off, it is going to be
a very elusive goal," says a polite but skeptical Birmingham. Patrick,
however, is sanguine. "They were there in the development of these
recommendations and they will be there as the concrete proposals are
developed, because they want to be a part of reform," he says.
I hope the governor's optimism is justified; certainly he has
considerable powers of persuasion.
Still, as he and Reville pursue their praise-worthy plans, they need
to be on their guard not to let consensus become the father of
incrementalism - and the foe of real progress.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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