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| Despite fiscal crisis, education moves forward South Coast Today, Op-Ed by Paul Reville, March 13, 2009 While the commonwealth is rightly focused on managing through difficult financial times and developing the action plan that will allow us to emerge from this crisis leaner and stronger, we have been hard at work implementing the governor's vision of a transformed education system. The most significant accomplishment of the year has been the governor's successful advocacy for the inclusion of education as a top priority in the new federal stimulus bill. It would be hard to overstate the significance of this federal aid, not just for Massachusetts but for every state and all of the nation's schools. Gov. Deval Patrick led the charge on this critical aid which will allow us to stabilize our public education systems while advancing aspects of our reform agenda. We have two main goals: improve the quality of teaching and learning, and ensure that each student is prepared to take advantage of an improved learning environment. The Readiness Project presented a set of strategies to build on our successes and accelerate the work to close persistent achievement gaps. Upon its inception this summer, the Executive Office of Education initiated the work of coordinating an integrated pre-kindergarten-through-higher-education system. No sooner had we begun than the global budget tsunami swept across Massachusetts. Notwithstanding the agonizing business of administering cuts, we moved to streamline budgets, achieve major cost savings and to emerge with a smarter, more powerful education system. Simultaneously, we have made progress. First, we have chosen new leadership and at our education departments: Early Education and Care (EEC) Commissioner Sherri Killins started in February; Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) Commissioner Mitchell Chester started in May; and Higher Education (DHE) Commissioner Richard Freeland started in January. Strong education begins with strong leadership, and we have three dynamic leaders who are pushing an aggressive reform agenda. They meet regularly to engineer alignment of priorities and promote the collaboration we believe will improve our education delivery system, such as college readiness strategies crafted by teams of high school and college educators, early educators and higher education faculty designing programs to improve content knowledge in the early childhood sector, and elementary school teachers collaborating with early educators to identify school readiness indicators. Second, we have worked with each department on key initiatives that guide our reform work. EEC: The department has engaged in the expansion of universal pre-kindergarten grants, upgraded their Web site to aid families searching for child care providers, launched a new procurement process for providers, mounted a "Birth to 3" Task Force to target state policy on children's learning, and begun to develop a quality rating and accountability system for their programs. ESE: The department released regionalization planning grants to 12 communities, worked with their board to approve a new charter school in Gloucester and convene a task force on achievement gaps, increased the number of expanded-learning-time schools, and is developing a new accountability and support system to immediately address issues in underperforming schools and districts. DHE: The board approved new rules for measuring student persistence, moved to access tens of millions of dollars in federal student financial aid, maintained dual enrollment programs and is nearing a system-wide agreement on a transfer policy among the 29 campuses. Finally, we have begun releasing funds for long overdue campus construction as part of the governor's historic, $2 billion higher education capital bond bill. We have accomplished much in our office: The Readiness Cabinet is progressing on the work to integrate health and human services and educational systems to improve child readiness through collaboration and building a data management system. The Dropout Commission is providing critical guidance as we continue our work to keep students engaged and on track to graduate. We are building partnerships with colleges, school districts and charter school providers to aid in the development of Readiness Schools, autonomous, in-district, charter-like schools. The Task Force on 21st Century Skills presented a report detailing how we can strengthen our schools and set higher expectations for students by ensuring they can apply and demonstrate their core knowledge and an array of "hard" skills demanded by 21st century employers. And working with the governor, we proposed a new approach to charter school accounting and lifting the cap in ways which target our neediest students and our best charter schools. The responsibility of leadership is to project a vision and to engineer progress in order to realize that vision. We cannot afford to back away from our vision of the more robust education system outlined in the Readiness Project if we are to meet the 21st century needs of our students, our society and our economy. We will move ahead in spite of formidable challenges because of our commitment to deliver on our education ideals and the promise of education reform: equity and excellence. |
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