The Education Game and How to Play It

By Daniel Chase

I submitted this as part of a challenge for this blog to be a place which fosters creative problem solving.  The intent of the essay is to stimulate other ideas and discussion.

While much discussion has been going on about whether the state takeover is good or not, little discussion is taking place about the educational game as a whole.  The unwritten rules of the game place Southbridge at a great disadvantage.  We are powerless to change these rules.  But we can change the way we play.  If we do that, the state vs. local board issue will become moot.  But sadly at a moral cost. 

Education Reformers Have It All Wrong: Accountability From Above Never works, Great Teaching Always Does

From Salon

Excerpted from “The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling” by Jal Mehta. Published by Oxford University Press

In late 2001, three months after the September 11 attacks, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) passed both House and Senate with strong bipartisan majorities and was signed by a Republican president. Promising to use the power of the state to ensure that all children were proficient in reading and math by 2014, proponents heralded the act as the greatest piece of federal education legislation since the creation of the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. By requiring the states to set high standards, pairing them with assessments that measured whether students were achieving those standards, and holding schools accountable if students failed to do so, NCLB, in the eyes of its sponsors, would close achievement gaps and make America’s schools the envy of the world. 

The Massachusetts State Budget: State Aid to Education

Ken O’Brien

As The O’Zone pointed out yesterday, state aid is a vital component of the town’s budget.

Aid for general government constitutes between 12% and 13% of total non-education expenses.

But this is trivial when compared to the portion of Southbridge’s education budget underwritten by state aid. During the fiscal year at least 71% of the town’s education budget is provided by state funding.

New Study: Kids Say School Is Too Easy

Ken O’Brien

According to a new study out today from the Center for American Progress, which picked over three years of data collected by the Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, 37 percent of fourth-graders say their math work is “often” or “always” too easy, 57 percent of eighth-graders says the same about their history work, and 39 percent of seniors say they rarely have to write papers on what they read about in class.

Almost a third of eight-graders say they read less than five pages a day, and are only required to write long answers on reading tests twice a year or less. 

Local Education in the 21st Century

Ken O’Brien

Three articles that appeared in the local press this week got me to thinking about where education at the local level is heading.

The most recent appeared today in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette and was titled “Local leaders get first tour of new Southbridge school”.

The other two articles appeared in the Southbridge Evening News. On February 17th they published an article with the headline, “DESE slams school improvement process” and on February 13th another front page article informed us that, in Charlton, “School committee discusses impact of virtual schooling”.

The Utility I Hoped For…

Kenneth M. O’Brien

Back in 1973, while a State Legislator, I proposed that the State of Massachusetts fund the development of what I termed “A Statewide Information Utility.”

In 1976-77 I expanded the idea to “A National Information Utility” as part of an application for a White House Fellowship. Having reached the Regional Finalist stage, I was interviewed by a panel of judges. Among them was the late Ella Grasso, then Governor of Connecticut. Her damning critique at the time was. “You don’t really believe that people will read books and magazines on a TV screen, do you?”

Over the years I have seen the concept expand, leading to the Internet we have today.

My deepest regret, however, was that it never truly developed into the universal, free, educational medium that I had envisioned.