“Look Before You Leap: Lessons for the Next Wave of Education Reform from the Last Twenty Years”
What has it accomplished? Where are we going next?
Share your experiences and ideas.
Hear and discuss the findings of the Citizens for Public Schools report on 20 years of education reform in our state.
Learn about new proposals to increase testing and expand charter schools.
Some forums have been organized by state Sen. Pat Jehlen and held in the four communities of her district: Cambridge, Medford, Somerville, and Winchester. Co-sponsors included other legislators, School Committees, teachers unions, and community groups in the four communities. A similar presentation was held at the Massachusetts Association of School Committees Conference Friday, Nov. 8.
All are open to everyone, not just residents of the communities where they will be held.
To inquire about holding a forum in your community, email us at guisbond@mit.edu.
Despite the spotty record of the past 20 years, Massachusetts is poised for a new wave of testing and possibly more charter schools in the next few years. MCAS will be replaced by PARCC exams, beginning with extensive field testing this school year.
In the forum presentation, we look at some PARCC items at the forums and see how they compare to MCAS. To see more sample PARCC test items, visit this page.
To see publicly released MCAS items, go to this page.
For CPS testimony on PARCC at the Mass. Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting Oct. 22, go to this page.
The Associated Press reported on some of the problems that states ran into when they decided to switch their testing programs to computers, here.
More on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), here.
An Oakland teacher wrote about Pres. Obama’s comments on high-stakes testing in Education Week, here.
