State of Massachusetts Archives: on Education

Ayanna Pressley: Debt free college should be available for all

Brian Herr: Schools are best run at the local level; end Dept. of Ed.

Christy Mihos: MCAS has become a weapon against public education

MIHOS: We’ve really cut all the support services for MCAS. I am against MCAS. It was a tool, it’s now a weapon. We went from 1789 to 2003 in this Commonwealth with public education and it works. We’ve spent $9 billion dollars over the last few years on ed reform and what have we learned? When you fund these school systems properly they do well, when you don’t they don’t. I’m against MCAS.

Christy Mihos: No state-based merit pay; let cities & towns decide

MIHOS: I’m against merit pay, but what I’m for is Christy’s proposition 1, get as much local aid back to those cities & towns, let them make the decision at the local level via their local school committee, as to how to run their schools, and not let some elites up on Beacon Hill in the department of education make the decision for the local cities & towns as to what they want taught in their schools and how they want it taught.

Deval Patrick: Favors MCAS, but not as only measure of education reform

PATRICK: I’m in favor of the MCAS. The problem is that we take the MCAS and we slap it on top of school systems that are already under strain. We need to make the MCAS better; we need remedial programs; we need additional measures of how a student is developing academically so that we are educating the whole child. I think it’s a mistake for us to think that all there is to education reform is one high-stakes test.

Deval Patrick: Incentives & merit pay on school-wide basis only

PATRICK: I agree with one of the Lt. Governor’s ideas, about incentives to encourage teachers to come to underperforming schools. That’s a great idea. I will also say that I support merit pay but I think there’s a right way & a wrong way to do it. I think we do differ on this. The right way to do it is in a way that encourages collaboration. So I’m looking at merit pay by team or by school. How do we lift the whole school, ought to be our approach.

Grace Ross: MCAS is a big part of why kids drop out of high school

ROSS: We have a generation now that might not even make it through high school. About a quarter of kids are dropping out, if you go to African American kids you get close to 50%, Latino kids we’re over 50%. The test is a big part of the problem. Obviously we need the funding for the schools. But the reality is that test is a key piece, it’s connected with the timing of when the kids started dropping out and we’ve got to pay attention.

Grace Ross: Constitutional commitment to education--35 kids is too many

ROSS: The best measure of how a school is going to do is how much money that community has and that tells us what’s really going on is there is an economic drain going on in our schools. No teacher can teach well in a school that has 35 kids or more. So what we need to do is put money back into our schools, we have a Constitutional commitment to education in this state and I think we actually need to follow our Constitution.

Kerry Healey: Strong supporter of the MCAS and standards

HEALEY: It’s not all about funding, it’s about standards. I’m a strong supporter of the MCAS. Over the last 10 years we’ve brought our schools from being below the national average to way above the national average in terms of the SAT scores We have over 90% of our kids who past that test every year and it tells our employers that they are qualified to do the jobs they’re going to be asked to do. Standards are important.

Kerry Healey: Merit pay for best teachers & those at most-needed schools

HEALEY: I have two proposals around merit pay. I’d like to test our kids in the beginning of the year and the end of the year to help identify who really are our best teachers and I’d love to give them merit pay. The other thing I’d like to do is give incentives of additional pay to our best teachers to go and teach in the schools where they’re needed most, in our schools that have been identified as under-performing.

Chris Gabrieli: Supports charter schools and calls them successful

Christy Mihos: Supports charters, but keep the cap for now

Deval Patrick: Supports unionized Horace Mann charter over regular charters

Deval Patrick: Supports MCAS but would add a science test and other tests

Kerry Healey: Strong backer of more charter schools

Tom Reilly: Supports charter schools in districts with low test scores

Chris Gabrieli: More charter schools and individual merit pay

Deval Patrick: Cap charter schools until funding formulas improved

On merit pay, Patrick shifted from his support for rewards for individual teachers to saying he favors a system that would encourage collaboration within schools or teams of teachers by awarding bonuses more broadly based on a school’s overall improvement. The evaluation would not be based on MCAS test results, he said.

On quasi-public charter schools, Patrick said school districts must begin to incorporate those innovations that are proven to work into traditional public schools. He also said he favors a cap on the number of public schools until new funding formulas for charter schools are devised “that don’t drain” district school funding.

Tom Reilly: More charter schools and individual merit pay

Kerry Healey: Raise mandatory age to 18 with incentives to stay in school

A: I would propose to raise the mandatory age of school attendance to 18, and in conjunction with that, a number of changes would have to be made to accommodate the fully 20% of kids who drop out state-wide, so it’s school attendance or graduation until 18. And, in order to do that, we would have to put a much greater focus on alternative education. Perhaps schools that operate at night, for those kids who need to work during the day to help support their families. Schools that provide day-care as well, for those young people who are young parents, who are taking care of their kids. We’re going to have to provide different vocational education for kids who don’t really like the academic curriculum and are not looking to go on and go to higher education. So, together, we’re simply raising the age. There are a number of other steps that you need to take to hold the interest of those kids who would otherwise drop out.

Kerry Healey: Higher percent of spending in classrooms & teachers

A: I’d like to be spending more of our dollars in the classroom. I would like to see 70% of our Chapter 70 dollars spent in the classroom. Right now, we spend about 64% of our education dollars in the classroom.

Q: When you say used in the classroom, is that for teacher raises?

A: That could be teacher salaries, but it could also be for books and equipment, and technology. Anything that enhances the experience in the classroom.

Tom Reilly: Supports charter schools and MCAS testing

Kerry Healey: No in-state tuition break for illegal immigrants

Scott Brown: Vouchers for public, private, or religious schools

Rep. Brown indicated he supports the following principles on education:
• Support national standards and testing of public school students.
• Provide parents with state-funded vouchers to send their children to any participating school (public, private, religious).
• Support MCAS, as well as teacher testing, and reward teachers with merit pay.
• Increase state funds for school capital improvements, hiring additional teachers, teacher salaries, full-day kindergarten, and Head Start.