Encouraging Signs for Education Reform
The Boston Globe
October 21, 2005
By Scot Lehigh
Governor Romney seemed a tad disappointed not to spot a row of TV cameras when he, Education Commissioner David Driscoll, and Boston School Superintendent Thomas Payzant strode into a Wednesday press conference. The TV reporters had probably been drawn to Taunton by the drama of the endangered Whittenton Pond Dam, he speculated.
Perhaps. But though less immediate, the educational news the trio highlighted also deserved big play.
Improving on a strong performance two years ago, Massachusetts fourth- and eighth-graders have surged to the head of the pack on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, known as the nation's report card. Our fourth-graders outscored those from every other state on reading and tied Kansas, Minnesota, and New Hampshire for first place in math. Our eighth-graders also owned first place in reading while tying Minnesota for first in math. In all categories except eighth-grade reading, our proficient and advanced scores were up significantly over 2003, while the percentage who failed declined.
So charged up was the Mittster that he ventured within euphemism of cussing. "Being number one in America is pretty darn good," he declared.
Yes, indeedy-do.
It wasn't all good news, of course. Black and Hispanic students aren't doing nearly as well as white and Asian students. And with the percentage of the Massachusetts student sample that achieved proficiency or better still only in the mid- to high 40s, we clearly need to improve overall mastery.
But as a whole, the news is encouraging, and it's part of a continuing payoff for the state's education reform effort. It also provides a vantage point from which to look at one contentious issue that accompanied that effort.
That's MCAS. We've often heard from MCAS opponents that the exam simply encourages teaching to the specific test rather than real learning. But the fact that Massachusetts students are doing well on a different national test and that our SAT scores have risen over the last decade is strong evidence that students are learning real skills. Indeed, in three of four categories, the percentage of students scoring proficient and advanced on the NAEP exam tracks closely the percentage that hit that level on the MCAS.
The challenge for the future, said Driscoll, is how to improve scores for minority students. There, one Boston charter school has shown some remarkable results.
Having spent several long hours on Tuesday at an Education Committee hearing in which the usual suspects continued their thinly disguised assault on charter schools, I want to highlight what the Media and Technology Charter High School in Boston has accomplished in not just boosting its minority students over the MCAS passing bar but in bringing them to proficiency as well.
The school has a student body that is 90 percent black and Hispanic, and 88 percent of last year's sophomore students were from low-income families. Yet 100 percent of that admittedly small class of 25 students passed MCAS on the first try.
According to Boston.com's rankings, 89 percent of MATCH's test-takers scored proficient or advanced in English language arts, while 93 percent achieved that level in math. Judged by the percentage who were proficient or above, MATCH ranked sixth in the state in math and tied for 20th in English among more than 300 Massachusetts high schools. For two years in a row, all of its graduating seniors have gone on to college.
So how has MATCH accomplished all that?
Alan Safran, the school's executive director, says that with only 185 students, MATCH is small enough both to feel safe and to allow for strong relationships between faculty and students.
MATCH also includes two hours of tutoring in its longer (8:30 to 5) school day, with the same students working with the same mentors through the year. Indeed, with foundation support, MATCH recently built a dorm for tutors on its third floor and now pays new college graduates $600 a month to spend a year at the school tutoring. That obviously isn't an option for most traditional public schools.
But as Safran notes, federal law now requires colleges that receive work-study dollars to spend some of that money on community-based jobs. With dozens of colleges in the Boston area, every public high school should be aggressively pursuing college work-study tutors, he says.
There's an idea worth exploring, from a charter school that does itself proud demonstrating just what underprivileged minority kids can achieve.
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