Reville at MASC / MASS

I won't liveblog all that I hear at the Mass Association of School Committees/Superintendent's conference this weekend, but I thought that some of you might be interested in the remarks made by Secretary of Education Paul Reville and Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester Wednesday evening at the opening dinner.

Reville begins by lauding the work done by superintendents, school committees, teachers, principals to make us number one in the country, but we still have "gaps as large or larger" than other states. The "future of the economy and society" depends on fixing it this; they plan to do "with urgency" and do it in cooperation with the education field. After 16 years of ed reform, what we are doing isn't "wholly adequate."
We want for our students "success in life," "as life-long learners," "as citizens"
The Readiness Project was designed to "deliver on the promise" keeping in mind that accountability and choice in education "are here to stay."
That said, he "understand(s) the pain and drain"of charter schools on budgets (explains that charter schools strictly limited under bill passed by Senate)
"unprecendented flexibility and autonomy" in districts to "challenge the mainstream" = the readiness schools

Reville said that the Ed Reform bill was not only about "getting an opportunity to get federal dollars," that it was "as much a moral rationale" as a financial one
Suggests that the Gates foundation might follow RTTT dollars with money of their own (they recently donated $10 million to the KIPP charters)
fears a referendum proposed by charter proponents that would lift the cap entirely (let me interject here briefly that he mentioned this several times now and later. Why he assumes such a referendum would be won by the charter proponents--they say it would, but, then, one assumes they would--and why we should be governing based on threatened referenda escapes me)

On to the budget!
comments that education has been a high priority to the Patrick administration, that when they cut the budget, they did not cut foundation funding (except Worcester lost all foundation funding from the state, which was supplanted by stimulus money. The state did not hold Worcester harmless.)
the state is hoping to avoid further 9c and ch. 70 cuts for this year; working with unions to cut back there instead

six readiness centers are opening around the state to "systematically improve the quality of teaching" and to do the "joint work of setting expectations" and integrating...