Board of Ed for September: opening comments

 I'm under the weather, so this one is coming to you remotely...

The agenda is here; the livestream is here. 

DESE has extended the embargo of  assessment and accountability results until 11 AM today.

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

Conference committee for FY26 is out

 A lot of the education money had been agreed upon already, but two education policy matters of note:

• the House-proposed "freeze and send to study" on vocational admission regulation changes is not in the conference committee budget, thus those regulations will stand as approved
  
  
• the amendment the Senate passed for a chapter 70 study is in the conference committee budget 

I've updated my spreadsheet with the numbers from the conference committee. There are a number of studies in the education sections: sex ed, transportation, teacher workforce, in addition to the above. Do note that the full SOA increase is being covered by Fair Share, which...I would argue is not what I, anyway, thought I was voting for. 

Note that, while the conference committee has finished its work, it's highly unlikely that we'll have a state budget today, as Governor Healey has ten days to make vetoes if she wishes.

A few thoughts on Tuesday's Board meeting

 This is my ongoing reminder that the only thing you see here is me thinking about things; no one else's policy or position is here.

• While getting to Methuen was a bit of a pain, it's nice for the Board to meet somewhere other than DESE's office. The degree to which the Board is very removed from schools is not helpful.
  
  
• We now have regulations that adhere to the mess of a law the November ballot question left us with, pending further action--eventually?--by legislators, which I guess are going to be informed by the Statewide Graduation Council. I've already noted that I am dubious about this group and its makeup, and I'm even more dubious about the work of any group this large writing a report. Plus, I don't think the Legislature should be the body deciding what it takes to graduate from high school. 
  But obviously, no one asked me.

May Board of Ed: vocational admission

Tutwiler: never been about casting aspersions on career-tech leaders or educators

Methuen High School auditorium

"has been about advancing values that reflect that every student" warrants a chance to pursue access

recommending one minor change to the middle school access, and three substantive changes to the weighted lottery
heard "loud and clear" the demand for more seats

May Board of Ed: opening comments

Today's meeting is being hosted by Methuen High (which has a stunning auditorium, and I'd quite like to have a box seat for Board of Ed meetings always, thank you). The agenda, which is regulation central, can be found here. 

If this box seat had an electrical outlet, it would be close to perfect.

updating as we go once they start...this will not start on time. 

Attorney General Campbell does not have time for this nonsense

Please note that the above post title is very much my paraphrase.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who is busy suing the Trump administration more than a dozen times* in the first 100 days of this administration, weighed in on the regulations regarding vocational admission in a letter to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The letter, dated April 18, was released today via State House News Service, which covers it here (which is paywalled and so far no one seems to have picked it up).

She opens right up with her own reason to be at this table: "As Attorney General, I am committed to upholding equal educational opportunity for all students in Massachusetts." This is, of course, literally part of her job.

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for March: opening comments

 The agenda is here. The livestream is here.
I'm covering this one remotely because seven hours of the public hearing yesterday WORE ME OUT!

I would assume today will include many nice words about Russell Johnston, as this is his last meeting. He has borne out my experience with MA Commissioners: our interim commissioners are our best ones.

Special meeting of the Board of Ed: March 10 CTE regulations

 Just saying up front: I'm not planning on liveblogging public comments. The news tonight is the question of acting Commissioner. Agenda is here. Note that the regulations proposed have been updated since the last meeting; they can be found here. 

Updating as we go

February Board of Ed: CTE admissions

 Sorry, my laptop ran out of charge during this part...moving tweets from my phone over!

proposed amendments can be found here

Johnston: public comment will be strengthen further 

Big news on voke admission

 When the Board of Ed meets next week, they'll be voting to send out for public comment a revision to vocational school admission regulation that, to use the Boston Globe summary: 

...that would bar the schools from ranking students based on selective criteria like grades, recommendations from guidance counselors, and personal interviews. Instead, they would be limited to using attendance and discipline as screening criteria for students to enter the lottery pool.

It has certainly seemed to me, as one who has been watching this closely, that the sense was that the state would lose a discrimination case on this. Nonetheless, an important step.

January Board of Ed: vocational admission

 admission to career and technical education
West: three meetings of subcommittee so far

possible approaches to admission revision

understanding by process of learning about, apply to and enroll in schools

vocational schools "struggle to gain access" to middle school students
application process is resource intensive for sending as well as vocational districts
schools have their own processes and regional agreements

often see disparities between applicants and admitted students
looked a specific selection criteria; which ones play most significant role in creating disparities
can now task DESE with draft revisions in this area
"may be even to review and send out for public comment" in February

based on what recommendations?

West: fairly naturally from our conversation
"any selective criteria need to be essential to the success of the school if they are having any disparate impact" on protected classes
that's my emphasis
for example: evaluative interview that is rated
could there be a broader way of expressing interest?

Moriarty speaks of visiting a school during the eighth grade visit

Board of Ed: CTE admission subcommittee

 chaired by West who starts by thanking everyone
"are changes needed to promote more access" to vocational schools in the Commonwealth
this is West, Fisher, Rocha, Hills

Board of Ed for December: opening comments

 The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets today in Everett at 9 AM. You can find the agenda here. 

It is a positive FESTIVAL of faces here at the meeting today...MA Teacher of the year, past student rep Ela Gardiner (home from college! Yay, Ela!), loads of voke superintendents, an MTA group (and that's just who I recognize)...

November Board of Ed in Holyoke: opening comments

 Coming to you live today from Holyoke High School, home of the Knights, making a nice change from the last time I was at a Board of Ed meeting in Holyoke when they were voting on receivership.

The agenda for today is here; don't expect it to start on time.
The high school (not uncommonly!) has social media blocked, so I am going to update here rather than try to update on social media.

updating as we go...

Board of Ed meets Monday and Tuesday

 and met Friday...this schedule is unsustainable. Monday's agenda (online only) is here; Tuesday's in Holyoke is here.

The extra meetings are the vocational admissions study sessions, and, while I did not see Friday's, my understanding is that it got...heated. The stats that DESE staff brought forward last month were not only eye-opening; they made it clear that we have a segregated system that is perpetuated by the admissions process. 

Here are the most noteworthy slides again:

October Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting: opening comments

 The agenda is here; livestream is here

My notes from last night are here

and the meeting has started, but there is no sound on the broadcast...

Special meeting of the Board of Ed: voke admissions (part I)

 The agenda is here; the livestream is going to go up here.

Meeting opened by Vice Chair Hills (with an amazing amount of noise behind him)
Johnston opens by saying it will be looking at the impact of the last engineering change
quotes “Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.” (W. Edwards Deming)

Tonight's agenda:

Things you won't read about this week's Board of Ed

 While there's been no lack of coverage of this week's Board of Ed meeting--of which you can read MASC's full coverage here--there's a number of things that happened that certainly didn't make headlines and in some cases didn't make the coverage at all.

Let's make sure we know what we're modeling ourselves on, please

 I once again and more than once this week found myself ranting about the Boston Globe (more on that to come). The first time was an editorial of January 8, which held up Worcester Tech's admission in a piece that argued that the state should move vocational schools towards lottery admission. 

Setting aside for the purposes of this post the larger question of vocational admission (I'd sum up my view as A) we're discussing the wrong thing and B) continuing to ignore how segregated our school districts are), I do think the piece gives readers the impression that Worcester Tech has an open lottery system for admission for ninth graders.

It does not. 

Pages 5 & 6 of the Teaching, Learning, and Student Support subcommittee agenda of November 14 of last year outlines Worcester Tech's admission policy. It is not an open lottery system; students are ranked by number of absences and what is called "discipline and safety" in setting those from whom the lottery will pull. Students must be "eligible" for the lottery. 

If we're going to hold things up as models, let's please describe them correctly.