Friday, September 19, 2008

How I See It

New education group targets Beacon Hill for reform

As another new school year begins in the commonwealth, it is more apparent than ever that education reform is an imperative and will require the full attention and action from all of the key stakeholders. This is not lost on the business community. In fact, K-12 public education was the top priority in the Massachusetts High Technology Council’s 2008 CEO Survey. Taxes, health care and transportation all ranked highly and are crucial to a long-term sustainable tech-based economy, but none elicited a stronger response from the commonwealth’s technology CEOs than the need to transform our education delivery system.

It is that sense of urgency that led the council to collaborate with the Boston Foundation and Mass Insight to create Leaders for Education, a coalition led by 25 chief executives from Massachusetts’ largest employers, universities, and nonprofits to make education the central public policy issue on Beacon Hill.

On Sept. 11, 2008, Leaders for Education launched publicly and established consensus priorities to reflecting private-sector demand:

• Preserve and expand reforms put into place as the result of the achievements of 1993, including the use of MCAS, the standards-based evaluation of students as a requirement of graduation; and the role of charter schools as an option for students;
• Raise expectations for schools, educators and students based on the changing demands of the economy; and
• Invest in meaningful innovation.

Massachusetts has led the nation in academic achievement in both math and science, despite trailing many competitor nations (India, Singapore, China and more than 15 others). Fully recognizing Massachusetts’ national leadership in education, Leaders for Education is motivated by the fact that Massachusetts schools are losing ground to global peers.

By focusing on specific policy initiatives Leaders for Education will bring an exigency to education issues and advocate for specific reforms that improve educator quality and systems change.

In June, the Patrick administration unveiled the Readiness Project, a sweeping 10-year education reform plan. Leaders for Education broadly supports the plan but has identified specific areas where it will provide leadership to help shape policy.

Leaders for Education urges the administration and the Legislature to:

• Increase spending and identify efficiencies that could be put into place to lower costs and free resources for investment in educational innovation;
• Lift the cap that has been imposed on the number of charter schools in the state and promote the development of additional pilot schools, in parallel and in addition to Readiness Schools;
• Create real targets for Readiness Schools, including timetables for roll-out and numbers of new schools to be created using the Readiness Project in coming years;
• Introduce differentiated compensation for teachers and school administrators to address the realities of special challenges in subjects that fail to draw sufficient teachers, and the special challenges in failing schools.

Fifteen years post education reform, it is more important than ever that the guiding principals — standards, accountability and choice — established through that landmark policy are preserved. Concurrently, we must be innovative in the establishment of common goals for an improved education delivery system that teaches the 21st century skills fundamental to supporting long-term tech-based economic interests.

 

Christopher R. Anderson is president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council and former chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education.