MA gubernatorial debate on Fox News: on Education

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.