Education Reform forum examines law's decade of funding
Lowell Sun
Susan McMahon
May 2, 2003
After 10 years of Education Reform, 91 percent of high school seniors have passed MCAS, poorer school districts have received the funds to build new schools, and students across the state are learning from the same standard curriculum.
But poorer school districts are still lagging behind on MCAS scores. Budget cuts may force layoffs of hundreds of teachers. And education outside of K-12 programs remains nearly off of legislative radar screens. On the 10-year anniversary of the 1993 Education Reform Act, school districts particularly poorer school districts acknowledge they have made significant progress. But there's still a long way to go.
"The biggest achievement is that every child counts. Every child did not count before Education Reform," said Mark Roosevelt, vice chair of the Massachusetts Alliance for Business Education and co-author of the Education Reform Act.
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Now, in a time of dwindling resources, the question of how much to give to education threatens to undermine the credibility and progress made since Education Reform. Education experts tackled the issue at a Mass. Inc.-sponsored forum yesterday, held on the 10-year anniversary of the Education Reform Act.
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"Accountability has to get shifted now to building on the idea that every kid counts, that every kid makes substantial progress from when they begin to when we finish with them," she said.
Where to go from here, at the 10-year anniversary, is an idea that draws splintered responses.
House Speaker Thomas Finneran embraces the idea of early childhood education programs. Board of Education Chairman James Peyser hopes to bring the same level of educational emphasis to the state's public colleges and universities.
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