The Massachusetts state House and Senate yesterday passed a major education overhaul bill, considered to be the most sweeping school legislation in the state in more than 15 years.
The bill calls for doubling the number of charter schools in districts that are in the lowest 10 percent of state assessment scores and grants new powers to superintendents, making it easier for them to dismiss teachers and lengthen school days (a policy that PPI supports).
The story might seem like a state matter, but it actually has broader relevance. Here’s the telling passage from the Boston Globe:
The bill represents a cornerstone of Patrick’s education agenda, which slightly more than a year ago appeared to be all but on hold as the state confronted ever-worsening budget woes.
But the effort was reignited last year at the prospect of receiving $250 million from President Obama’s Race to the Top competition, reserved for states aggressively pursuing overhauls of failing schools and expansions of charter schools.
Now state education officials are racing to meet a Tuesday deadline to submit their funding proposal, including a copy of the approved bill. They will send the hundreds of pages by express carrier, while a state official who will be in Washington Tuesday has agreed to drop off a backup copy.
Massachusetts students are typically among the top-performing students in the country. But when broken down along socio-economic lines, the results actually vary greatly, with black, Latino, and low-income students all lagging behind. By lifting the cap on charter schools, the bill allows charter schools with proven track records to replicate their methods and try to revitalize long moribund school districts.
With Race to the Top, the Obama administration made a bet that dangling financial incentives for states would prompt them to enact reforms that for years have been stuck in sclerotic legislatures. By combining money with reformist guidelines — for instance, Race to the Top’s insistence on a favorable policy toward charters — the administration is getting states and districts to consider and pass bold education policies without imposing onerous top-down orders. The Massachusetts education bill is a victory for the reform in the state, but it also augurs well for the national education reform landscape.
