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

June 2025 Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: innovation career pathways presentation by North Attleborough High

 there's a cast of thousands here, 

March 21 Worcester School Committee meeting

 It's budget season, which means I am all over the state, so I'll do catch up on these as I can; I wasn't at this one and I can't make the next two, either, so they'll be coming later. Do note that the Committee meets this Thursday; the report of the Superintendent is on special education. 

The March 21 agenda is here; the video of the meeting is here. The report of the superintendent on future ready pathways is here.

Note that prior to the public session, there was an executive session on two worker compensation issues and negotiations with the Mass Nurses Association.

The consent agenda was passed. 

The Burncoat High School spirit team was recognized.

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: vision and mission

 There's a backup on this here
Johnston: "you are our audience right now" 
as we go into this transition, want to be make sure we're grounding this work in the vision we have of change for our schools
when he was a superintendent, "I was on the receiving side" of DESE work
"while the creativity was always clear" was not always clarity in how those spoke to each other? were they timed well? 
for students who have been historically marginalized, there is no time for DESE to lose its footing

How are these credit-bearing courses?

I'm using my snow day in part to read through the Doherty Memorial draft Preferred Schematic Design report, which will get its own post, but this section on page 648 raised the ongoing question I have on this:
How are these courses?

Beginning in the 2018-19 school year all grade 9 students are required to participate in a ten week course focused on college and career readiness, earning 0.25 credit upon successful completion of the course. The lessons in the Introduction to College and Career Readiness course incorporate lessons from Naviance and are designed to assist students in creating and maintaining a plan for their individual and personal educational plans or MyCap. The lessons include time-management exercises, self-awareness activities, interest inventories and college and career exploration lessons. 

Beginning in the 2019-20 school year, all grade 10 students are required to participate in College and Career Readiness II and will earn 0.25 credit upon successful completion of the course. The lessons for the tenth-grade students represent a continuation of the introductory course and increase the breadth and depth of these exploration activities and support the further development of their individual plans for high school while increasing each student’s knowledge of postsecondary options based upon their career interests.

Liveblog of Senate deliberation of S 2350 "The Student Opportunity Act"

The Senate opens its session at 11 am.
The bill is here.
The amendments are here.
The session can be viewed online here.

I was here early enough that my polite request for permission to take a photo was granted. Newly redone!

posting as we go

Never mind college and career ready

...how about preparing kids for the future they might actually face?

Joint Board of Ed meeting

The K-12 Board of Ed meets jointly with the Higher Ed Board this morning at Bridgewater State. They'll be talking about early college and about MCAS.
Then the K-12 Board has its regular meeting.
scheduled to start at 9...we'll see...
meeting called to order; members now introducing themselves. As I don't know the Higher Ed members, I'll do my best. 
Bridgewater State president introducing his campus, which is the state's single largest producer of teachers.
Commissioner Chester: terrific discussion, to advance a conversation,
focused on early college

Board of Ed talks about ESSA

Making a rare trip into the special evening session of the Board of Ed to cover their discussion tonight on how DESE plans to handle ESSA.
While the backup for tonight isn't yet on the website, they were circulated earlier; I've posted the Executive Summary here, the plan highlights here. The meeting is due to start at 5; posting as we go once it starts. 

Vice Chair Morton opening the meeting, now that there's a quorum.

Mass Inc "Community Conversation on ESSA and School Accountability"

Forman, Mass Inc.
Gateway Cities "Vision for Dynamic Community-Wide Learning Systems"

• early education
• social and emotional growth
• college and career pathways
• newcomers

"we haven't seen the kind of resources that Gateway City leaders feel are necessary"

October 25 Board of Ed meeting in sum

This morning, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education met in Malden. The agenda of this meeting and last night's meeting can be found here.
Last night's session, which I did not attend, was an update on the state's update of the ELA and math standards. All of the backups, including the full suggested standards, can be found from this link. At this point, the plan is for the Department to bring suggested standards back to the Board at their November meeting, for them to vote out for public comment. Comment would be due back in January, with final standards voted in the spring.

This morning, there was no public comment from Secretary Peyser or Chair Sagan. Commissioner Chester opened his remarks by noting the state's reception of a nearly $16 million grant for new charter schools and shared practices. Secretary Peyser is attending a competition in D.C. this week as part of the New Skills for Youth grant competition. He mentioned that the supplemental budget does contain funding for the new MCAS. He spoke positively of his visits to schools, noted an opening on the career and tech advisory council, and spoke of New Heights Charter in Brockton being fully enrolled at 316 students.

There was a single public comment regarding gifted students.

There was an update on Southbridge (under state receivership) and on Level 5 schools (apologies; I missed the beginning of this as my wifi went down).

What had appeared from the agenda to be a straightforward update on the proposed (last month) drop of a student impact rating as a separate item from the educator evaluation turned out to be a fairly extensive discussion regarding a degree of concern both the Commissioner and others on the Board have with such a move. It opened with the Commissioner referencing what he believes to be a significant change in the teachers' association position regarding this; he specifically referenced "communication to their members," which I believe is referencing this article from MTA Today. From the discussion, it appears that at least Fryer, Peyser, and Moriarity also would resist a drop of that from teacher evaluation, with Fryer citing Gates Foundation research regarding teacher impact on student learning. It closed with the Commissioner commenting he "cannot endorse a regulation that removes student learning from consideration" and "I think a case can be made that we've been too soft on this."

The Board did vote, as expected, to extend the current MCAS as a graduation requirement to the class of 2020, meaning that the first class to be required to pass the new test to graduate will be this year's eighth graders, who will also be taking that test this year.

The Board voted to amend the regulations around turnaround plans, providing that the plan in place will remain in place until it is replaced, eliminating any limbo period.

There was also a discussion of the FY18 budget, which largely was a report by member Craven of the budget subcommittee meeting.

Worcester School Committee meetings this week

Two meetings for the Worcester School Committee this week: TLSS and the full committee.
The Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports standing committee is posted as meeting tomorrow at 5:30, but there's no agenda posted online. UPDATE: You can now find it here.
The full committee meets Thursday at 4 pm; you can find the agenda here.
There are a number of recognitions, including Al Ganem, who is now the superintendent of the Hampden-Wilbraham school district.
The report of the superintendent is the annual opening of school report (no link as yet, as the report isn't posted).
Goddard would like a voluntary school uniform (consider this your periodic reminder than any such uniform policy in the public schools must be voluntary, as students are guaranteed the right to an education).
As you may have seen in today's T&G, the nearly annual request for a report on school choice students is on the agenda. Something that appears to be being missed in the reaction thus far is the way the numbers skew older. That somewhat has to do with growing numbers of surrounding districts cutting off on school choice students; once a student has choiced in, they can stay until graduation, so in some districts, only older students who were already in would be allowed. However, it does argue that at least some of these are students who have attended the Worcester Public Schools and left. I don't think a video is going to convince those students that they've missed something.
There is a multiple part response to Miss Biancheria's inquiry on Durham, transportation, the new transportation person, and invoices, including the 23-page contract with Durham.
The administration is (again) asking that an items that the administration doesn't respond to within 24 months be automatically filed. Note that this would allow administration to kill an item they didn't want to report on by letting it age out. I'm not saying that they would; but it would be possible. 
Mr. O'Connell wants a program for gifted students, to know if the annual grant assurances document has been signed, if the guard shack at Burncoat should be removed (can they do South's, too?), to submit a grant request to MSBA for technology, and to...sign warrants?

gb #6-281 - Mr. O’Connell (August 10, 2016) To implement the provisions of the November 1995 letter of the Commissioner of Education, and the Advisory on School Governance which accompanied it, that "the school committee remains the body responsible for approving and transmitting school department expenditures to the municipal accountant for the drawing of warrants. The Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services has advised that all school department bills must be approved by the school committee. When the superintendent, or principal and superintendent, have statutory authority to incur expense, the Department of Revenue advises that the bills must be approved by them as well as by the committee."

Okay, maybe we'll come back to that one...here
Mr. Monfredo wants to thank Houghton Mifflin for a book donation, to UMass Med for a donation to Worcester Tech (which wasn't received by the school committee), a report on the summer programs, to include the Heimlich maneuver in CPR training, to participate in Constitution Day in September, and to recognize a WEC donation.
Miss Biancheria wants a report on the new bus routes.
The administration is forwarding the Substance Use, Treatment, Education and Prevention for related policy changes.
They want to file a list of items requesting reports from Ms. Colorio, Mr. Monfredo, and Mr. O'Connell.
They're requesting acceptance of a $10,000 grant for Career and Technology Education.
There are a series of prior fiscal year payments.
There also is an executive session after the meeting for deliberation around collective bargaining for bus drivers and monitors, for custodians, and for teachers.

No Time to Lose: National Council of State Legislatures weighs in on the post-NCLB universe

The National Council of State Legislatures after 18 months of study today released a report on what successful school systems around the world are doing. Their interest is in influencing the post-NCLB, state-focused, U.S. education universe. The full report can be downloaded here.
NPR has a good summary of the first three points in their report:

1: More Help For The Youngest Learners In the U.S., poverty is a powerful drag on the youngest learners, with too many children showing up to kindergarten both hungry and lacking important cognitive and noncognitive skills. Research suggests that preschool, when done well, can have a profound impact on children's lives, but too often in the U.S. it's done badly or not at all...

2: Teachers Need To Be Better And, in this case, "better" is a big tent. The report's authors say it starts when future teachers are still students...Once these top-flight teachers enter the classroom, they also enter a very different professional reality — one that involves as much training as teaching. In some places, the report says, just "30 percent to 35 percent of a teacher's time is spent teaching students, while the rest is spent on activities such as working in teams with other teachers to develop and improve lessons, observing and critiquing classes, and working with struggling students." Too often in the U.S., teachers work in isolation, cut off from their fellow teachers. In contrast, Stephenson says, many high-performing countries have embraced a team-teaching model, where newer teachers are constantly observing veteran teachers and being observed, fine-tuning their skills in real time. Overseas, observation is about improvement — not just accountability. And then there's pay. Yes, other nations have higher standards for their teachers, but with those standards come increased respect and pay, on par with engineers and accountants. Imagine that. 

3: Fix Career And Technical Education (CTE) You know, the classes formerly known as "voc-ed" — auto repair, welding, carpentry, etc. The report suggests that, in the U.S., many schools have failed to adapt their CTE offerings to fit the needs of the modern economy, preparing students for jobs of the past instead of matching them with today's employers. It's strange given the mantra heard often from U.S. policymakers and educators, that today's schools should prepare students to be "college and career ready." In reality, Takumi, the Hawaii Democrat, says many schools "have kind of pushed career to the side." As a result, too often students need college in order to be career ready. To make matters worse, in the U.S. CTE also has a perception problem. Stephenson, the Utah Republican, says "it is considered a second tier for low-performing students. ... That is our tradition in America." . It's a chicken-or-egg problem. Whether that perception created the current reality or was created by it, both need to change.

The fourth item is "reforms that are connected and aligned as parts of a clearly planned and carefully designed comprehensive systems," which is not only difficult to summarize: it's also difficult to do.

It'll be interesting and informative to see which states do anything about any of this at all. 

College and Career readiness (as revised)

including civics
passes unanimously

Board of K-12 ed meets with the Board of Higher Ed this morning

Posting from Roxbury Community College where the Board of K-12 Ed meets this morning jointly with the Board of Higher Ed. Agenda for that is here. 
Liveblogging once the meeting starts at about 8:30
Meeting coming to order
Starting with college and career readiness definition, incorporating civic learning and engagement
using the term "civic preparation"
some of the definition:
"means acquisition of the knowledge, the intellectual skills and the applied competencies that citizens need for informed and effective participation in civic and democratic life; it also means acquiring an understanding of the social values that underlie democratic structures and practices"
much discussion by Commissioners of this being joint work
not being asked to vote today in joint session
Sagan: seems probably non-controversial as so much work was done in and around K-12 board
Peyser: one point which I mentioned is the importance of the study of US history "and our founding documents"
the notion that "we can develop the competencies of citizenship without a knowledge of U.S. history" is lacking
respect for others, respect for variety of thought; thinking "calling out more explicitly"
Sagan: any contradiction with history standards we have?
Peyser: MassCore called out, don't think it's in contradiction
Higher Ed commissioner: important to know how this came out, prompted board to look at this due to lack of knowledge of students about history and civics; haven't seen a state as proactive about civic learning
college rep: "civic participatory skills" sounds like students will become political activists: 'will this make school too political?"
would empower activist teachers
Commissioner: haven't seen any shift in activists due to this initiative (which is being worked out on campus)
comment from Higher Ed to "empower our students to see themselves as participants"
You "participate in civic life because you want to make things better"
(another higher ed member) "strategic in this process...you can pick any -ism that you want...what I heard is 'participation'"
"engaging in the local senior citizen center, engaging" in other volunteer activity
"I really like this...fully aligned...I endorse the document as it is"
Noyce: "endorse this idea of respect of speech and thought"
concerned it "doesn't refer to specific knowledge"
Peyser: thought "foundational documents"
"I think it's a very important distinction...really need to understand what our institutions are, what our underlying...principles are"
"need to know the rules of the road to play"
Harrity "so many chances for communities learning projects"
apologies, by the way: I don't know the Higher Ed board members by sight
another higher ed member "does this framework allow ...for the development of proficient cultural competencies"
assistant commissioner "appreciate those questions"
"beginning stage in our joint work"
"the kinds of issues you brought up are very much part of the discussion we had"
"being able to take the perspectives of others who are different than you...develop empathy"
"addresses the challenge of bringing together people across diversity"
notion of stewardship
"stewards of a tradition of shared government, stewards of working together for a common good"
McKenna; unless we pay attention to this, we're going to have nobody voting in the future
people have different views of strategic change: "I hear referedums, town meetings..."
core civic content: "understand the basics of our government"
"back in the day, this is what education was about"
higher ed member: "skills do really reenforce what employers are asking"
another higher ed member: how much input millenials had in creation of this document? really changing the workforce
might really be surprised at how it's reshaping civic engagement in terms of technology
response: has not been high-level participation to this point by millenials
Sagan: great deal of input of students
Willyard: making sure students had a voice in creation of the document
"at least on ESE side of things" very communicative
Sagan "one of my fun jobs is playing the clock monster"
won't suggest vote today together "think I heard pretty strong support for this"
heard two modifications proposed by Secretary

DESE's FY17 budget priorities

The Board of Ed Budget subcommittee established the following priorities for their FY17 budget:

• curriculum & instruction/ early literacy
• educational time & after school programs (to which, on a suggestions from Margaret McKenna, they added 'summer' as well)
• student well-being: nutrition programs, safety, social-emotional well-being
• civics education
• school-to-career connection activities
• educator development
• student assessment
• targeted assistance for schools and district turnaround work

Note that Secretary Peyser recused himself, as these requests then go to his office for discussion before being submitted to Governor Baker in his creation of House 1.

Report of the superintendent: alternative education

the report is here as held from the previous meeting

Boone: not just say we're doing things, but evaluate how they're put in place
last month presented information on the arts magnet pathway in the city
have done the same thing with alternative education
"should not be substandard education"
Rodrigues: received an alternative education grant for this evaluation
Education Development Center looked at Creamer Center, Challenge Academy, Reach Academy, Safety center, transition center, Woodward Day (under the collaborative)
effective alternative education programs:

• small in size
• flexible schedules and structures
• faculty adjusts approaches to meet their students needs

since this report was provided to us, already able to put recommendations into action

evaluator really saw a lot of strengths in our program

A few notes on the House budget

The FY16 Massachusetts House budget was posted yesterday, and it's (mostly) good news:

• Chapter 70 is fully funded (we'd all hope that the state meets its legal obligation here, but it's good to check). It's also up $2.8M, as they're increasing minimum per pupil increases to $25/pupil.
• Quality Kindergarten is back! The House has it set at $18,589,713 which is within a dollar of the projected spending (see [on all of these] "Historical Spending" tab) for FY15. That would mean that it's being restored to the level after the midyear cut; it would be helpful to have it all the way back.
• Governor Baker's proposed grant merger isn't in here! Scroll your way down into the 7010 accounts and following, and you'll see that the Gateway Cities, ELL, literacy and so forth all have funding level restored, and the Partnership Schools Network account is cut by $9.5M. That's not only important to those programs--and thanks to the reps for listening!--but it also questions this centralizing of power at DESE that was clearly being anticipated by the Commissioner and Secretary. 
• Circuit breaker funding for extraordinary special education spending is up another $8M, getting us closer to full funding (always tricky to declare, since it's a reimbursement based on submitted receipts). 
• Regional school transportation is up $5M from the Governor's budget.

• There's also some cuts from the Governor's budget (and if anyone can explain any of these, I'd be interested!): $3,355 from the Secretary's office (which is more than a rounding error, but not enough to do much). $188,245 from DESE as a whole. 
• $1.7M from a $2.7M budget for School-to-Career Connecting Activities, which has had stable funding at that $2.7M level for a number of years. 
• $879,826 from Adult Education, which is about a $30M account; that will knock it down below this year's projected spending. 
• Student and School Assessment is brought down to FY14 levels, a cut of $5M statewide.
• It also zeroes out two lines that were added by the Governor's budget: $500,000 for implementing educator evaluation and $200,000 for School Safety and Supports.

More to come if or when I have it!

Board of Ed on college and career readiness

sorry, a few tweets, but no notes on Lawrence
Now a PowerPoint on college and career readiness; you can read the Commissioner's memo here.
career development education
"majority of our students and the vast majority of our low income students have to work while pursuing post secondary education"
reason many drop out due to finance
working and education are done together rather than one after the other
"thinking to do and work to do while students are in K-12 on career ready and college ready"
or does that mean we have work to do on how we provide higher ed?
Advisory group to "keep pushing this work forward"
what are you tracking? Student, school, and employer level: schools offering career development activity, increase number of students participating, and number of employees participating
want 100,000 9-10th grade students doing career awareness exploration activities and 75,000 11-12th grade students participating in career immersion activities by 2017
"conscious development of a set of skills that facilitate and sometimes compliment academic skills"
wish to increase school to career line item in DESE budget
have to have employer engagement: "it's a combination of sales and account management"
"upward trajectory is really dependant on increase in funding"
"the last thing I want to say is this has got to be the year"
has hopes of Jim Peyser, as former Board chair
"this item historically never dipped below $4M...slipped all the way to $2.7M after last week's 9C cuts"
"three legs of the stool that students in our schools need to sit on"
by which he means academic, social/personal development, workplace readiness
need to make sure stool becomes more balanced
spend a lot of time getting kids college ready, but we need to get kids job ready, "because that's where they'll spend the bulk of their life"
big pitch here for increased funding for next year
looking for track of what happened in pilots that have run
Board "should consider incorporating career development education into what we measure and assess"

Board of Ed on "Career Development Spectrum"

backup is here
11th and 12th grade is about "career immersion activities"
career development activities (lower high school and middle school)
career awareness activities (elementary)

Wow. So we're apparently completely ignoring that most adults now change careers multiple times over the course of their life now, and having sixteen year olds decide what they want to do for their lives?