Board of Ed: Commissioner's priorities

 The backup is here

Have met 2700 stakeholders and attended over 50 events
this marks six months on the job

"no MA student group is at pre-pandemic levels on the MCAS"
it's pretty depressing to see that as slide 3 on what he intends to focus on
"getting back to pre-19 is not the ultimate goal; we have to start somewhere"
"the rest of the country is making progress"
"worst of both worlds: we're overall lower, and our gaps are still wider"
"we have no data at scale that says that a high school diploma is enough" to support a family
we graduate over 70,000 students every year
opportunity to improve it with vision of a graduate; "this is legacy work"

• Power of Presence: increasing student attendance and engagement

• Literacy Launch: strengthening evidence-based early literacy practices

• Future Focused: expanding college and career pathways

• Inclusive Impact: strengthening evidence-based practices for students with disabilities and English learners

• Teach Tomorrow: building a robust teacher pipeline

• Accelerating Achievement: providing comprehensive support for low–performing schools

He asks for feedback
work to design a comprehensive strategic plan
have already started thinking about it internally
don't have coherence across the agency; lots of initiatives, lots happening, but not making connections across agency
in reworking agency, two deputy commissioners: Lauren Woo and Rob Curtin
seven senior associate commissioners

All within current budget of DESE

Grant: "that grace of entry has been seen"
"we have a lot of work to do"
"though this state is well-resourced and well-educated"
Not sure that all issues rest within our jurisdiction
restructuring often communicates a need for coherence

Mohamed: thanks for energy and fresh perspective
useful to really "think robustly about milestones" as think about strategic plan
"having some really clear metrics and guidelines"
Martinez: indicator for college is meeting state standards at some point, plus MassCore
"unapologetically, we have to double-down"

Rocha: "feel like it's been like two years from July to now"
"what are we going to measure?...if MCAS isn't going to stop students from graduate, there's less enthusiasm for taking it"
Martinez: high standards are what has allowed MA to be where it is
that was the whole graduation discussion: end of course exams
"importance of mastery"
"really crystal clear with parents...importance of standards and of student achievement...that's something I am going to be very emphatic about"
for some reason Grant is speaking now, though she does not have the floor
crux of disagreements within the council

Hills: surveys over past years, chasm between how parents think their children are doing and how they are
"not just putting out the data but putting out the data in ways that the most trusted sources of data--the teachers and the districts--agree with"
some metrics, annual goals, not for the sake of meeting or not, but how quickly or over how much time we're meeting objectives
Martinez: embracing that in this role, I don't have direct supervision of schools
working with school districts and partners
"let's be clear what success means"
"I don't see a lot of coherence statewide...we have to have coherence across the systems" 
He seems to mean preK and higher ed
Grant: "cannot skirt powers" given Board and Commissioner
"during the pandemic, there were historic investments made, and we do not have data" showing results
"powers to hold individual schools accountable"
"I want to see names" on receivership
well, isn't that all an interesting perspective to have on there

Craven: right advisory councils to inform the Board
power to persuade, the power to drive an agenda

Hills: now is talking about Thomas Kane
and West says his work is "understanding where we are and the challenges that we face"
West: the opportunity to figure out what works
data "that we have not fully deployed in service of our mission"
and Grant jumped in, too on Kane...good lord

Martinez: next step is to create a calendar and a timeline
align with the budget process

Hills: "you know, Tom and his team put together...and it's from data from DESE, here are the interventions, here is the amount of closure from 2019"
"I may be simplifying it"
West: there's nothing emperical 
Grant: we "don't have access to the data"
West: difference between saying in general high-dosage tutoring has bee successful, would contrast with actively monitoring results in real time to see that our implementation of high-dosage tutoring
Grant: high dosage tutoring in real time monitoring in D.C., in 90 days increments to see how it was being 
"do have full capacity within research community"
West: have capacity in the agency
are we getting to a conflict of interest question here?
"it will require resources...have to embed capacity"
okay logging off to get to the budget hearing