April 2026 Board of Ed: opening comments and Miliken Award

The Board of Ed has their regular April meeting today beginning at 9 AM. The agenda is here; the livestream will come up on their channel over here. 

flowers in downtown Boston yesterday

Today is the first meeting at which the new Secretary, Steve Zrike, will be present in that capacity. As a reminder, Zrike was Salem superintendent, though most of his appearances at the Board of Ed previously were in his prior-to-that position as Holyoke receiver. As an offhand observation, today is the eleventh anniversary of the Board voting the Holyoke Public Schools into receivership; I don't know if there's a balance to that or not. 

Also as a reminder, the Secretary is a single member and a single vote on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (as well as the two other education boards, Early Ed and Care, and Higher Ed), serving at the pleasure of the Governor, who appoints him*

I will update this post as we go

Comments on the local contribution study

 As you may remember, one of the several studies required by the Student Opportunity Act is one on local contributions. Comments for that study are due this week. Here is what I submitted; please do note the opening paragraph.

Let me begin by noting that my comments here reflect solely my own perspective as a single member of the Worcester School Committee, albeit one that spends a significant time on school finance. These comments do not reflect my employer, the Mass Association of School Committees, nor necessarily those of the rest of the Worcester School Committee.

I think it's of utmost importance to stress that the underlying principle of the local contribution for Massachusetts public schools—that communities that have less local wealth contribute less—is sound. This is the philosophy of the commonwealth, that the wealth the state is held in the common good, interpreted through the McDuffy case, requiring that the state's people as a greater body provide for all the children in the state through its public schooling, even when, or especially when, the local community cannot. At least philosophically, Massachusetts holds that zip code should not determine one's education. 

Conditions of Education in Western Mass: Rennie Center

I'm at the annual Conditions of Education in Western Massachusetts, put together by the Rennie Center, in Holyoke. It appears as though today is about the Preschool Expansion Grant. The hashtag is #COE2018. 

ESSA and Chapter 70 reform: Implications for Massachusetts Education

Speaking today:
Pat Francomano, immediate past president, Mass Association of School Committees
Senator Pat Jehlen
Commissioner Mitchell Chester
Professor Martin West, Harvard Graduate School of Education

and moderated by Linda Noonan of Mass Business Alliance for Education

posting as we go

An invitation not to get

So here's an invitation that I didn't get: it seems that MassInc is hosting "The Gateway Cities Education Summit" here in Worcester on February 4 at the Beechwood Hotel. The description says that it:

will bring together policymakers, practitioners and elected officials towards the shared goal of improving education in the state's Gateway Cities

Well, that would certainly seem to include the elected school committtee for the City of Worcester. And yet, somehow, I certainly haven't been invited!
I suspect somehow it isn't that my invitation has been lost in the mail. A quick read of some of the organizations involved:

• MassInc
• Mass Business Alliance for Education
• Stand for Children

...makes me think that "invitation only" is quite intentional.
Just remember that when you read the write-ups on February 5, eh?