Education Reform Act
of 1993
The Implementation
Plan identified fifty-four distinct activities
grouped into five Strategic Goals:
Strategic Goal I:
Establish new
standards and programs for students that ensure high
achievement.
-
the Common Core of Learning,
-
curriculum frameworks and content
standards,
-
statewide student assessments;
and
-
performance standards and
graduation requirements.
Analysis of Strategic Goal II:
Administer a fair and
equitable system of school finance.
The Foundation Budget.
The first standard
of financial support relates to the determination of
what constitutes an adequate budget. The foundation
budget is a model, minimal budget which the
Legislature determined to constitute adequate
funding. It is a budget built mostly on assumptions
(i.e. for every 100 students, X guidance counselors
and Y teachers will be needed, Z of whom should be
special education teachers). The Supreme Judicial
Court cemented a promise in the landmark case
McDuffy v.
Robertson,
when it found that the state was constitutionally
required to "cherish its schools."
Standard of Adequacy
A gap between what
Schools currently spending and the
standard of
adequacy,
called a "foundation gap." In order to fund this
historic promise while maintaining previous
financial commitments, the Education Reform Act
establishes a funding schedule that ratchets up the
state appropriation to schools by approximately $150
million each year though the end of the century.
These increases will nearly double the state's
direct appropriation to schools by the year 2000
from $1.5 billion to $2.8 billion. Barring a further
court order, future legislatures and administrations
are not legally bound to the funding schedule. By
the early Fall, Department staff will have resolved
remaining questions of interpretation sufficiently
to generate a five year budgetary projection for
each school. With these five year projections,
schools will achieve the third criteria,
stability.
School Choice
In determining that it
is fundamentally a state not local responsibility to
provide equal education, the Supreme Judicial Court
made it clear that the quality of education that a
student receives should not depend upon his or her
place of residence. Whereas the initial 1991 school
choice statute required poorer sending districts to
pay the full tuition charged by the receiving
district, the Education Reform Act caps the
amount that a receiving district can charge and
provides reimbursement to schools that spend below
the foundation budget level. The second
important change to school choice that took effect
during the first year of Education Reform, is that
districts were now assumed to participate in the
program unless their school committee took an
affirmative vote to opt out.
Analysis of Strategic Goal III:
Work with school
districts to create a governance structure that
encourages innovation and accountability.
Introduction
The main focus of this goal during
the first year of implementation has been to support
school districts in transforming their governance
structure from a top down model that risks a lack of
accountability, to a school-based model in which
principals and superintendents now have the
authority and accountability to act as CEO's of
their respective parts of the system.
School-Based
Management
The primary change to the governance
structure occurred at the school level. The
Education Reform Act transferred the authority to
make most staffing and operational decisions to the
school principal. Within each school, the principal
now has the authority to hire, evaluate, and, if
necessary, dismiss teachers and other staff. In
addition, within the framework established by the
school committee, principals are now authorized to
make all purchasing and curriculum decisions. As
part of this transition, principals are expected to
operate as professional managers and are no longer
included in collective bargaining units.
To assist principals in managing this
increased authority, Education Reform required every
school to establish a school council by mid-October.
Each school council is
co-chaired by the principal and consists of
representatives from the parent group, teachers
union, community, and, at the secondary level,
students.
Because school councils have only
advisory authority, some councils found it initially
difficult to define a meaningful role. While the
success
of a school council ultimately
depends on the individual principal's ability to
lead an open and participatory process, the
Department of Education and statewide professional
associations have provided resource materials and
training to assist principals in their new roles.
During the spring, a network of thirteen districts
that model school-based management was established
to help lead future efforts. Additional resource
materials and an exciting new video will be
distributed to schools over the summer.
Analysis of Strategic Goal IV:
Enhance the quality
and accountability of all educational personnel.
One of the basic
assumptions of the Education Reform Act is that a
new system is needed to enhance professional
performance. The Act directs the Board of Education
to set statewide "guidelines for establishing
systems of evaluation, including teacher performance
standards."
A substantial
commitment to professional development will need to
be made at all levels of the education system. All
certified educators must begin to develop ongoing
Individual
Professional Development Plans.
The professional development activities included in
these plan need not be higher education courses. As
much as possible, the IDPD should focus on
school-based activities directly connected to
improving student
learning. In-service workshops, cooperative
professional projects, mentoring, and peer coaching
are all acceptable professional development
activities that count towards an educators
recertification requirements. The primary
responsibility for planning and providing
professional development lies at the individual
school and district levels. School councils should
include a total professional development strategy in
their
School
Improvement Plan.
Superintendents should work with school committees
to develop a
District Professional Development Plan
and
budget to support these professional development
activities that approximates 3% of the total salary
budget for the district.
Analysis of Strategic Goal V:
Improve the Department
of Education's capacity and effectiveness in
implementing Education Reform.
Introduction.
The last two years has
been a particularly intensive period of change for
the Department of Education. In addition to moving
from Quincy to Malden and implementing a
comprehensive reorganization, the Education Reform
Act redefined the Department's basic mission. Under
the leadership of the Board of Education, the
Department of Education is now responsible for the
development and support of statewide standards for
students, teachers, administrators, schools, and
districts. This change in focus has necessitated
several major changes within the Department.
Leadership on
Education Reform.
During the first few
months Department of Education staff had to learn
about Education Reform even as others looked to the
Department to explain it. As soon as the Education
Reform Act passed, Department staff began analyzing
it to develop resource materials for school
districts and other interested parties. An initial
packet including a copy of the Act, index, and
calendar of key dates was disseminated to every
district and community along with an invitation to
send a team to one of four summer conferences. Also
during the summer Department staff dissected the Act
to develop an implementation plan for all new state
responsibilities.
The development of the
Education Reform Implementation Plan exemplifies the
Department's new approach. A bottom-up approach was
used to develop the plan in which the lead teams
identified for each new activity were given the
major responsibility to develop a work plan for
implementing the activity. Once approved, the
results of these work plans were summarized,
formatted, and distributed widely in an effort to
broaden the participation of all key stakeholders in
implementation and to make public benchmark for
which schools, the Legislature, the Governor, and
the public could hold the Department accountable.
Development of
Statewide Standards.
Supporting People in
Achieving the Standards.
Partnerships and
Outreach.
Technology
To meet the objectives
of Education Reform information technologies must be
integrated into the education system.
Reference:
http://www.doe.mass.edu/edreform/1st_Imp/GOAL5.html |
