Center for School Reform

1) Massachusetts’ 1993 Education Reform Act dedicated substantial new money toward K-12 public education. In return, it also included a number of controversial reforms like MCAS, charter schools and teacher testing. Some issues, like extending the school day and expanding public pre-K offerings, are relatively non-controversial. As

Massachusetts has access to educational opportunity?

2) In the wake of the Education Reform Act, Massachusetts saw historic improvements in educational achievement. Our students are consistently the country’s best performers and in 2007 they scored among the best in the world in international math and science testing. But since then the data has been far less encouraging. The commonwealth’s SAT scores are down 20 points from their 2006 highs, the percentage of third-graders

As governor, how do you plan to address this stagnating student achievement?

3) Among the parts of the 1993 Education Reform Act that transformed public education in Massachusetts were academic standards in English and math that were aligned with MCAS and became a national model. In 2010, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education jettisoned those standards for ones that were developed by Washington, D.C.-based education trade groups and promoted by the federal government and wealthy private foundations. Do you support so-called Common Core or do you prefer the commonwealth’s homegrown standards?

4) Stanford University researchers found that Massachusetts has the nation’s best charter schools and that Boston charters are doing more to close achievement gaps than any other group of public schools in the country. Harvard and MIT researchers have reached similar conclusions about Boston charter schools. Despite these results, an effort to increase the number of charter schools in low-performing school districts recently failed. As governor, what would you do to support the Commonwealth’s charter schools?

5) The performance of regional vocational-technical school students on MCAS has improved by 40-50 percent in recent years and the schools also provide outstanding vocational training. Not surprisingly, the number of applications to these schools is on the rise and most have large waiting lists. As governor, what would you do to provide more students access to high-quality, regional voc-tech schools?

6) nearby suburbs, is closing the achievement gap and improving educational outcomes. But budget cuts in recent years have resulted in approximately 10,000 students – about three times more than are in the program – being

7) U.S. history standards and testing were part of Massachusetts’ education reform law. But in 2009, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education cancelled U.S. history MCAS implementation, citing the $2.4 million cost. What is your position on reinstating passage of a U.S. history MCAS test as a high school graduation requirement?

8) The Florida Virtual School is considered the gold standard in on-line learning in America. Despite two legislative efforts to encourage on-line learning in Massachusetts, the Bay State lags 15 years behind leading states in virtual/on-line/blended learning. How would you remedy this?