The Joint
Committee on Education held a public hearing today. The focus was on the ballot
initiative questions (one on Common Core and one on the charter cap lift), ‘though
they also took public testimony on bills regarding summer learning, mental
health, and a line item allocation for Wilmington. The full liveblog (of a
hearing that lasted seven hours)
is here.
The summer
learning item had a solid group of public testimony including several mayors
and former Secretary of Education Paul Reville. There was much discussion of
this as a way of equalizing student access to enrichment.
The mental health
bill calls (essentially) for adding that to what is done as part of student
health courses. Some of testimony was from the students at Leominster High who
had designed the course there.
The Common Core
testimony reflected much of the testimony regarding PARCC and MCAS last summer,
‘though there were several attempts to clarify that one is not the other. There
were struggles in testimony as Senator Chang-Diaz asked for differences between
local control then and now (in that state standards have been decided by the
Board of Ed since ed reform in 1993); there was also some conflicting testimony
over use of resources (in that the change in standards was made in 2010, thus
changes in curriculum that have been made since then were in alignment with the
changed standards already; a few who were testified in favor of the ballot
initiative seemed unclear that this change had already occurred). Commissioner
Chester, as has been his wont recently, testified against the initiative.
The charter cap
lift brought out some interesting arrays of testimony in opposition, and a
marked lack (going by past experiences) of testimony in support. Those in favor
of cap lift were either parents (‘though not many this time) or allies; there
were sharp words from Senator Chang-Diaz to the High Tech Council for their
endorsement of the charter cap lift when they (as they revealed in responding
to a question from Senator Jehlen) have no position on the Foundation Budget
Review Commission’s recommendation; she called it “extremely disappointing and
frustrating.”
Mayor Walsh of
Boston testified against the cap lift, because he is proposing a different cap
lift proposal. Some of the Boston Public Schools students who walked out in
protest of budget cuts came to the hearing and several testified when Senator
Chang-Diaz took them in alternation with those who had signed up earlier. They
offered some of the more eloquent testimony of the day, speaking of a dual
system of schools, and asking why the Legislature would even be considering a
cap lift when they don’t have the resources they need to fund the schools they
have currently. This was echoed by Senator L’Italien.
This was also the
first hearing at which I recall two members of the Board of Education (namely
Ed Doherty and Mary Ann Stewart) offering testimony in opposition to the
charter cap lift.
MASC offered
testimony jointly with MASS, pointing out that the bill, which would allow for
up to 12 additional charters a year, would be equivalent to opening an entire
Fall River School system each year and would cost the state $120 million (as
the state fully funds the first year of charters at 100%). Salem School
Committee member Brendan Walsh walked the committee through the local approval
repeatedly recommended by MASC (and proposed in a bill from Senator Moore),
closing with "if they think
they (the Board of Ed) know best, they may still have their own way, but on
their own dime.”
No comments:
Post a Comment