Worcester Education Collaborative opening

There was a crowd of maybe a hundred and fifty on the second floor of Mechanics Hall.

Grogan cited as doing "pioneering work in length of school day and year"
Melinda Boone "represents a superintendent's dream; to have a community that is proud of its public education..committed to the education of its children...giving time to its children"
"had the vision to establish the Worcester Education Collaborative"
"it's a huge community leadership team that looks in the mirror"
"education is very important to this community, to my community now...education is the heart of Worcester, in the heart of Massachusetts"
"not just the support in terms of dollars...commitment that our students don't have to stand outside the gates of these institutions...challenge down the road will be how can others get into the colleges and universities of Worcester, because so many of our students are filling the seats there"
"great time to be the superintendent in the city of Worcester...rich legacy to build upon...landscape is shifting..respond to that changing landscape...we've attempted to generate that conversation across the city..first to admit that some were painful..truly about how do we engage our community and what do we value"
"we accept that for what it is (Level 4)...don't blame students...families...teachers...principals...administrators...move the conversation forward"
"true sign of a healthy community ready to be engaged"
"preferred education provider in this community..align our students and their success with 21st century skills..make room in our hands to receive more, have to let go of some things"
"Worcester is a city of immigrants...prides itself on everyone having great opportunities"

Paul Grogan "who can resist an opportunity to drive from Boston to Worcester at rush hour?"
"the latest fruit of that engagement"
"an enormous statement that you're making of shared responsibility...absolutely necessary..particularly for low income children who increasingly dominate our urban communities"
"we do have to say that urban public education in the United States remains an enormous disaster, an enormous disaster"
"I thought of the children being flushed out of our schools, mostly urban schools, at the rate of a million a year"
"will earn {less}, be incarcerated more often"
"will cost the nation three trillion dollars in lost wages in their lifetime"
"50 largest cities have graduation rates below 50%" (Worcester's is higher)
"previously the explanation was that these children are in poverty...the data would seem to support this hypothesis...but that's also a way of taking us all off the hook, and you obviously don't want to be taken off the hook..and in the last several decades we've found these theories are wrong..too many of them down to be dismissed as accidental"
"I believe we are getting to a place where have data supporting"
(and YES, there are the charter schools!)
'an opportunity here...catch is, we have to do things very differently"
"entrenched interests fighting the changes"
"charter schools the best in the state..." (and here come those stats on charters, but none on special education students, parent choice, etc, etc.)
"appear to have very large messages about what it will take to extent these successes to many"
"tremendous breakthrough with the Ed Reform bill...radical piece of legislation if it used"
"love that your superintendent talked about schools of choice"
"new powers to bring new ideas into the system, often pioneered by charter schools" (oh, really? Like what?)
"shifting ground"
"I think that with your collaborative, Worcester can be the place that makes a difference"
"Parent constituency is too weak to demand performance" compares to suburbs where "parents demand results" (I don't think that's the case, and I think it's a question of empowerment rather than size of district)
"that is why your collaborative is so important"
"let's hold this institution responsible for results, because it's terribly terribly important"
"In God We Trust, everybody else bring data"
"the good news is, we have the data...we've had a data revolution...the problem is that data has to be kept, marshaled, and kept in front the public, I would argue by an independent entity, like the Boston Foundation"
list of statistics regarding who completes a college degree upon graduation (you may have seen the Boston Globe story)

urge collaborative to create a picture, a pipeline, and "set tough but ambitious goals"
"but above all keep that picture in view"
"to insist that those that are blocking change get out of the way"
"you can get your arms around this"
"product of that great thing called human ingenuity"
"you may or may not be fans of charter schools...classic case of entrepreneurs freed from the shackles"
No doubt the charter school system is going to keep growing
the question is "whether school districts will succeed in importing to their districts those things that work"
(I left at this point, as they opened the floor for questions, but I did hear that the first one rejected the comparison of charters to public schools, as they have different numbers of kids in class)