I'd like to be able to give you some sort of meaningful summary of last night's Board of Ed meeting on the DESE strategic plan (liveblog here), but it wasn't that sort of meeting.
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| Polaris? This is as close as we're getting around here... |
Let's walk through some main points:
The agenda (which doesn't tell us much) is here.
The livestream is here.
Martinez: setting new benchmarks for proficiency, lower to zero doesn't meet (I think)
he is just saying this aloud; it isn't shown or written out as to what he's saying...this is really hard to follow
Martinez: start from an asset-based perspective
there's a memo here but it doesn't have a lot
...and now rather than talking about what people think it might say, it can be read. You can find the whole thing here. (I haven't read it yet.)
The report says it is to the Governor and "Legislative Colleagues," but the first formal discussion will take place at a special evening meeting of the Board of Ed on Monday evening at 5 PM. The agenda isn't up yet, but the livestreams come over this YouTube channel.
State House News (link via WGBH) reports that two things of note for those who have been following this:
This isn't going to happen right away: "The report proposes the implementation of the first MassCore cohort entering 9th grade in 2027-2028, and the implementation of the other requirements the next school year with incoming freshmen."
The report recommends one state-designed exam in English language arts, one in mathematics and one in science, while also encouraging further exploration of a history and social science assessment. The tests would be designed, administered and scored by the state and taken when students complete specific courses.
Unlike the December recommendations, however, the final report explicitly states that "Performance on the EOC assessments will meaningfully count toward students' academic record and path to graduation."
Exactly how much those exams would matter remains on open question.
The report says, "Following additional planning and engagement of stakeholders, the Council co-chairs will determine the specific role that EOCs will play in students' academic record and graduation."
That language leaves unanswered whether graduation could ultimately depend on passing the exams, and seems to contemplate a significant role for test performance.
As a number of us have been consistently noting: the state is the entity required to ensure there is a public education system that fulfills its constitutional obligation to each student.
Martinez: not going to share detailed numbers, as Governor releases budget tomorrow
will give a detailed memo shortly after the Governor's budget, so overview of process today
hint, hint: RELEASE THAT PUBLICLY PLEASE
Bill Bell: a day early, if it were Thursday, we'd be able to roll through
"continued investment"
will have details out to shortly
Governor files with House clerk; goes to House Ways and Means committee; then repeats itself in the Senate
Joint Ways and Means hearing sometime in March; Commissioners and Secretary will present and will take testimony from professional organizations
tomorrow Governor will release her proposed budget, which starts the process
the backup memo is here: I'm going to stick the whole text below for easy reference
and oh dear it is Matt Hills again, whom we cannot hear
In their past two meetings, the Board of Ed has established priorities; in November, for the FY27 budget request, and in December, for the Commissioner, which he proposed as being the foundation of a strategic plan.
I'd first note--and I do realize that the Board here is constrained by state deadlines on budget--that the above is really backwards; you always want to establish your priorities before you do your budgeting. You set your values before you spend your money.
With that in mind, then, let's consider first the priorities, with a connection to what one would then need for budgetary priorities.
Let's first note that he started with this slide:
...which I just find super disheartening as framing. Someday, someone is going to note? remember? that public education is guaranteed by the state "for the preservation of their rights and liberties" and that it is for the good not only of individual children, but for all of us. THAT is what we should be leading with, anytime we are asking how we are doing.
Have met 2700 stakeholders and attended over 50 events
this marks six months on the job
Martinez: has not yet opened but has made progress on these conditions
ask to approve conditions for opening Fall of 2026; extension of dates is under discretion of Commissioner, including additional training for the board members
conditions will be overseen by DESE staff
Martinez: "won't let something open under my name that isn't ready to serve students"
conditions approved
Martinez: results are mixed
no student group across the Commonwealth that is above pre-pandemic levels
"we always meet children where they're at"
foundational goal: regardless of what people's opinions are of where we were in 2019
"here in our Commonwealth, I seem advantages, I see alignment, I haven't seen in other parts of the country"
At the end it's about us coming together
"I'm fine having critical friends...there are no shortcuts in this work"
"the data will speak for itself"
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| this sheep has nothing to do with it, but I thought we might need a sheep to get through this |
The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets today for its regular September meeting. This is the first meeting with the new commissioner, Pedro Martinez.
The agenda can be found online here. The livestream will come up over here. I'll update once they start.
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| you'd never know that this was below the Revere Beach Parkway, would you? |
And you can find the agenda for tomorrow's regular meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education here.
The big thing on the agenda is the annual release of school and district accountability data, 'though this message on the DESE School and District Profile page:
...makes me think that we're probably getting some sort of a press event around noontime today.
Let me give you my annual reminder here that Massachusetts state accountability is based on MANY THINGS beyond the MCAS, and anyone who makes MCAS the sole report they make--I'm looking here at you, Boston Globe, but I see school districts do this, too!--is not only not telling the whole story; they're misrepresenting what the state actually uses in measuring districts.
If someone has told you that the only thing we're focusing on is MCAS, that isn't DESE telling you that.
This will of course be new DESE Commissioner Martinez's first meeting, so it should be interesting to see how he interacts with the Board and with the DESE staff. Too often, in recent years, the permanent commissioner has left DESE staff out there on their own when facing the Board, which has both, in my view, been lousy leadership and not fair.
And speaking of leadership, the Board elects a Vice-Chair, and it will be interesting to see if they finally decide to start to move in the direction of the newer appointees.
It appears from the posted topics of the chair and the commissioner that we're going to get two rounds on the 'are we teaching 9/11' thing, with--yes!--the Commissioner making reference to the actual state standards (someone is doing their job!). Both the Secretary and the Commissioner are updating on the recent state graduation council release of their Vision of a Graduate. I presume that this goes now to DESE and the Board, as they're the ones who have actual power to do anything with it.
There is also a vote proposed on the "let's clean this up" regulation changes on regional schools (which, no, do not have a single thing to do with admission to regional vokes).
There are also proposed adjustments on the conditions on the certificate of the Felix Virtual School.
I plan to be there and liveblog, as per usual.
The (new) Commissioner of Education sent out an update on federal grants to districts today, which I am quoting here in full (followed by two notes from me):
Happy fiscal new year! FY26 officially begins today for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for Mass school districts, and for our towns and cities!
This also means we have lots of people starting new positions today: new superintendent contracts generally begin July 1, and our new Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Pedro Martinez is starting today, as well.
But it wouldn't be the Trump administration if we weren't also starting the new year with bad news, and so it is today: that concern I noted last week over federal grants for the fiscal year we start today has come to pass, and it is even worse than forecast.
On this brutally hot day in Massachusetts, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is having their June meeting. You can find their agenda here. The livestream will appear over here.
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| Should you wonder if DESE is backing down: no. |
I will update this as they go.
Look, you make baseball jokes; I make Pope jokes.
Also, if I messed up the accusative there, please let me know. It's been awhile.
At this point, I've heard a handful of concerns raised about the incoming commissioner. Noting, first, that there really is no perfect person, and also, that we don't yet know how he's going to act as commissioner, I would observe the following:
He got fired in Chicago. The "why" here matters enormously: Martinez, the former CFO of the Chicago Public Schools, was pressured as CEO to borrow THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS at a high rate of interest to settle the teachers' contract, with the hope that the state of Illinois would step in and cover it.
If you have a problem with that, I don't know what to tell you.
He was recruited out of San Antonio, after defying Governor Abbott on safety measures on COVID. He was bought out of his contract in Washoe County, Nevada, in a case that got the school board fined for violating the state's open meeting law.
He seems to have some worryingly pro-charter views. Yes, he was pretty clear about "charter = parent choice" in his interview. Looking into his background, the San Antonio teachers' union sued the district under his leadership due to his decision to have Democracy Prep (a charter organization) run a school in the district. It's a little harder to figure out what he's (himself) been doing in Chicago on this, as the board itself voted in December to fund charter schools for this year, before taking them in house.
It isn't, to be blunt, clear to me that we were going to get an explicitly anti-charter commissioner. I am sorry. I wish that were otherwise.
We're going to have to watch this one, no question. Let's note that in Massachusetts charter expansion is actually under the purview of the Board, not the Commissioner, and we should, if Governor Healey fills the seats open and opening, be getting a Board that is less privatization oriented. One would hope.
Also, I highly recommend reading this summation of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.
...because even if you watch them all the time, you can be surprised.
So, a Commissioner who acknowledges the role of school boards and came from the school finance side?
This could be fun.
A single agenda item today:
Selection of Commissioner for Recommendation to Secretary — Discussion and Vote
It's (now) a fully remote meeting, which will be going up here (watch that page; the video itself will be a new link off that page once it starts).
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| Please enjoy these daffodils on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway |
Updating as we go
