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In 1993, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dramatically overhauled its K-12 education system and created a new school finance formula, building an educational accountability structure to ensure every child has access to a high-quality education. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) established academic standards in core subjects, mandated assessments to measure student outcomes on those standards, and established a system for holding schools accountable when students failed to meet basic expectations. This system has helped Massachusetts' public schools become the highest performing in the country. Student outcomes in all tested subjects and across demographic groups have improved steadily over time, but disparities in achievement and attainment exist between the Commonwealth's most privileged students and their less privileged counterparts, many of whom are black or Hispanic. Without the MERA and its requirement to assess every student and publish aggregate academic outcomes, policymakers may not understand the extent of disparity or how to address it as student outcomes data are integral to understanding where Massachusetts' public schools have been, where they are going, and how they can get there. This paper illustrates the importance of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act and how it has positively impacted students over time. It explains why the current accountability system evolved as it did and why preserving the most important aspects of that system is critical if the state is going to fulfill its constitutional obligation to educate all children to a high common standard.

Graduates of special education teacher education programs can teach in a range of special education settings, raising the potential that their training can occur in very different settings than where they find their first jobs. We follow 263 completers of Moderate Disabilities programs in Massachusetts from their field placements to their early-career teaching positions and study the characteristics of their field placements and the degree to which these are aligned with their early-career teaching positions. We also assess the degree to which alignment is associated with early-career teacher turnover. We found that many of these teachers student-taught in an inclusive setting but were hired into a self-contained special education setting and vice versa, and teachers who experienced this misalignment were more likely to leave the workforce early in their careers. Teachers who student taught with a supervising practitioner without a special education license were also more likely to leave early. Findings suggest that teachers training to educate students with learning disabilities should student teach in a setting that is aligned with where they are likely to be hired, and with a supervising practitioner who is trained in special education.

Since 2020, the federal government has distributed almost $2 billion to American school districts to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic school closures. Released in three separate tranches through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund, the Trump and Biden administrations outlined parameters for spending this unprecedented amount of money and ensured that most of it went directly to local school districts, with a comparative sliver going to state education agencies. This report gives an overview of the most common ESSER expenditures to date and assesses the factors that might influence whether district ESSER investments will make a difference for students. It also provides recommendations for how stakeholders should evaluate the ESSER experiment once it officially ends.

Emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges make it difficult for many children and adolescents to engage and succeed at school. Research indicates that at least 20% of all children and adolescents have been diagnosed with one more mental health disorders. Behavioral problems, anxiety, and depression are the most diagnosed mental health issues, and they often co-occur. Moreover, these conditions are being diagnosed at increasingly younger ages. In the past several years there has been a rise in the number of adolescents and young adults with serious mental health issues such as major depression and suicidal ideation, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated mental health problems for children and adolescents. Schools offer promise for providing intensive clinical support to the most at-risk students, and schools are necessary environment to explore the implementation of multi-modal youth mental health services. This paper provides an analysis of an intensive, in-school mental health services model developed and implemented by Effective School Solutions (ESS), a New Jersey based provider of high acuity school based mental health services for K-12 students. We analyze this multi-modal model for its effectiveness in improving educational outcomes for over 3,000 students identified as requiring intensive clinical mental health support across the 2021-22 school year. This analysis reveals that those students receiving High- versus Low-fidelity programming (i.e., multiple sessions per week for at least half of the school year versus for less than half of the school year) had better educational outcomes. Students receiving High-fidelity programming had greater improvements in grade point average (GPA) and greater reductions in absences across the school year. A higher number of in-school clinical sessions per week significantly predicted a greater increase in GPA and a greater reduction in total disciplinary incidents (including out of school suspensions) across the school year. This report provides initial promising evidence that in-school intensive mental health clinical services yield positive effects on students' educational outcomes. Though future research is needed to validate and extend these findings, schools may consider implementing such services onsite to meet students where they are and to optimize students' mental, behavioral, and educational well-being. [This white paper report was published by the Yale Child Study Center."]

In 2008 and 2012, Pioneer Institute published reports documenting declines in enrollment in Massachusetts' public schools. At the time, enrollment had fallen by about 35,000 students over a decade, or roughly 0.5 percent per year, with especially large drops in western Massachusetts and parts of Cape Cod. This paper examines enrollment trends since that time in three main sections. The first section continues the analysis from the prior papers and describes changes in enrollment during the 2010s. The second section evaluates the impact of COVID, using data from 2020 through this school year that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) published in December 2022. The final section offers cautious predictions for the next decade.

We investigate two research questions using a recent statewide transition from paper to computer-based testing: first, the extent to which test mode effects found in prior studies can be eliminated in large-scale administration; and second, the degree to which online and paper assessments offer different information about underlying student ability. In contrast to the first test transition in Massachusetts, we find very small mode effects for a more recent transition, which may be attributable to an additional step matching on observable characteristics in the equating process. Second, we investigate the predictive evidence of validity for paper and online tests for predictions of future test scores and grades. We generally find minimal differences for the extent to which scores on paper tests can differentially predict future online versus paper test scores. Finally, online and paper test scores are similarly predictive of future grade point average. We conclude that the online test penalty can vary substantially by test and that extreme care should be taken when administering online tests to some students and paper tests to others.

We use administrative panel data from seven states covering nearly 3 million students to document and explore variation in "academic mobility," a term we use to describe the extent to which students' ranks in the distribution of academic performance change during their public schooling careers. On average, we show that student ranks are highly persistent during elementary and secondary education--that is, academic mobility is limited in U.S. schools as a whole. Still, there is non-negligible variation in the degree of upward mobility across some student subgroups as well as individual school districts. On average, districts that exhibit the greatest upward academic mobility serve more socioeconomically advantaged populations and have higher value-added to student achievement.

METCO, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, enables over 3,000 mostly African-American and Hispanic students from Boston and Springfield to attend schools in three dozen surrounding communities. The program has been remarkably stable for decades, with enrollment rarely falling below 3,100 or rising above 3,300, and most suburban districts continue to participate each year. The primary funding for METCO is through a state grant. Through evaluation of data that is presented in this report, it was found that several minor changes could make the program even better. The authors recommend that the state simplify the grant formula, incorporate current enrollment figures, and publish information about Chapter 70 funds generated by METCO students. The legislature should also provide additional funds to support late afternoon transportation and cover the special education costs of METCO students. Some of these changes, such as basing the grant on current enrollment and covering special education costs, would also make it easier to expand METCO. To expand, the legislature should provide the METCO managers additional funds to cover the immediate costs of expansion and commit to providing adequate ongoing grant support for a larger program. A relatively small investment of education funds could allow the successful program to serve additional students and their families.

This report finds that Massachusetts provides fewer options for students to be educated outside their assigned school districts than most other states do, and educational savings accounts (ESAs) offer an effective tool for giving students additional opportunities. Author Cara Candal proposes two potential ESA programs for Massachusetts.

This paper focuses on the increase in families who have chosen to homeschool their children in grades K-12 since the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. This update includes interviews with families who opted to homeschool their children in the conventional approach, rather than continue with the hasty remote learning that educators tried to transfer from the classroom in March of 2020 and then the blended approach of online learning/classrooms-with-masks format that many districts used during the 2020-2021 school year. This report follows a study authored in June of 2017, "Homeschooling: The Ultimate School Choice," also published by the Pioneer Institute. It covered the history of homeschooling, demographics on homeschoolers, the economics around homeschooling and legislation affecting homeschooling. The authors of this report include several recommendations on how policy makers and education administrators can accommodate the growth in homeschooling and assist families who chose this manner of education for their children. The authors also urge policy makers and education officials to do more to acknowledge homeschooling as a viable educational choice. Districts and states can do more to provide direction and information for parents who are considering non-traditional options. [Foreword written by Kerry McDonald. For "Homeschooling: The Ultimate School Choice," see ED588847.]

There is empirical evidence of substantial heterogeneity in economic mobility across geographic areas and the efficacy of schools has been suggested as an explanatory factor. Using administrative microdata from seven states covering nearly 3 million students, we explore the potential role of schools in promoting economic mobility by estimating cross-district variation in "academic mobility"--a term we use to describe the extent to which students' ranks in the distribution of academic performance change during their schooling careers. We show that there exists considerable heterogeneity in academic mobility across school districts. However, after aggregating our district-level measures of academic mobility to the commuting-zone level and merging them with geographically matched external estimates of economic mobility, we find little scope for geographic differences in academic mobility to meaningfully account for differences in economic mobility.

States are responsible for setting and evaluating the standards that teacher preparation programs (TPPs) must meet for accreditation. Despite the considerable investment that states make in this process, no prior research has linked the ratings of TPPs generated by program reviews to inservice teacher performance. In this paper, we describe analyses of program review ratings from Massachusetts and their relationship to formal inservice teacher evaluation ratings and the value-added effectiveness of teachers. When comparisons are made across all schools and districts in the state, we find that a TPP's review scores are positively predictive of both inservice teacher evaluations and value added of TPP graduates, particularly when scores are aggregated within specific categories like partnerships and field-based practices. These relationships, however, become more modest for teacher evaluations and statistically insignificant for value added when the relationships are identified based on comparisons between TPP graduates who are teaching in the same schools and districts. It is not possible to separate whether these differences are due to the TPPs, the schools and districts themselves, or the connections between them, so future work is necessary to further validate TPP review scores in this setting and others.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) provides services to students who have disabilities. These IDEA-funded services are afforded to students between the ages of 3 and 21 who attend not only public schools (including charter schools), but also private schools. IDEA contains comprehensive guidelines on 3 processes which, by design, are meant to ensure that IDEA-funded services are granted without prejudice to any private school student who may by law be eligible to receive them. These processes IDEA refers to as "child find," "consultation," and "proportionate share." For a variety of reasons, the execution of these processes has been decidedly flawed. As a result, tens of thousands of private school students with disabilities have been denied the services to which IDEA, as a federal law, entitles them. Relying on raw data from certain public-school districts and state departments of education regarding their respective execution of the "child-find" process, the authors assess the extent to which, nationwide, private school students' (and their teachers') fair and full access to IDEA-funded services has been systemically denied. Based on this assessment, the authors offer recommendations on how, in the short-term, the current IDEA statute and regulations might be better enforced and IDEA's regulations might be improved. In view of IDEA's anticipated re-authorization, the authors also offer recommendations on how Congressionally approved statutory changes to the current law would ensure that, in the future, private school students will finally be able to freely and fully participate in IDEA.

Individual teachers, administrators, and parents made tremendous efforts to continue educating the Commonwealth's children between March and June of this year. But no amount of dedicated individual effort could have overcome fundamental challenges: weak guidance to districts from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) against a backdrop of deficient knowledge and sophistication statewide with regard to virtual learning. Digital education has been empirically proven to be most successful when schools prepare and follow best distance learning practices. However, the Commonwealth lacks even the minimum technological infrastructure for virtual learning, as exemplified by districts scrambling to obtain electronic devices and internet connections during the school closure. It is encouraging that Governor Baker and the DESE have described a fall 2020 return to brick-and-mortar schooling--with appropriate health measures to maximize safety--as a significant priority. The present challenge is how to implement this much-needed return to school, optimally balancing the importance of in-person schooling with the countervailing importance of protecting against the virus. The following paper contributes important insights, based upon careful review of other countries that have already successfully reopened their schools. [Foreword written by David S. Clancy and Dr. John G. Flores.]

In the fall of 2019, well before the appearance of COVID-19, there was heightened concern among U.S. business leaders, economists and investors about a global economic slowdown and the possibility of a recession in 2020. But a downturn in the technology sector was not prominent among their worries. In the decade from 2018 to 2028 computer and information technology (CIT) occupations were expected to grow by 12 percent, adding more than half a million new jobs, well above the average for all occupations, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. In May of 2018, the median annual wage in CIT occupations was $86,320, well above the median annual wage of $38,640 for all occupations. One reaction to the promising labor market was a leap in undergraduate enrollments in computer science (CS) courses and degree programs at U.S. colleges and universities. The number of bachelor's degrees awarded nationally in computer and information science had increased by 74 percent at not-for-profit institutions between 2009 and 2015, compared to a 16 percent increase in bachelor's degrees produced overall. This paper reports on the findings in terms of how CS education is implemented and promoted across the United States, yet it takes no position on the actual need or usefulness of teaching computer science in K-12. Less than half the high schools in the United States teach CS. Girls and students of color are underrepresented in computer science classes. There's a need for more certified computer science teachers and more states to create CS learning standards. Even as computer science has accelerated research in health care, climate change and communications, it still finds itself behind the traditional disciplines of chemistry, biology, and physics within many high schools.

In this paper we compare two approaches to measuring the average rate at which students learn in a given school or district. One type of measure--longitudinal growth measures--relies on student-level longitudinal data. A second type--cohort growth measures--relies only on repeated aggregated, cross-sectional data. Because student-level data is often not readily available, cohort growth measures are sometimes the only type available. The estimated school and district learning rates reported in the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), for example, are cohort growth measures based on aggregated data. Understanding how much researchers and policymakers can rely on these cohort growth estimates requires one to know how well, and under what conditions, the estimates obtained from this approach align with those based on longitudinal data. In this report we address these questions. We do so by using longitudinal student data from three states (Massachusetts, Michigan, and Tennessee) to construct both average gain score measures (longitudinal growth) and change-in-average measures (cohort growth) for each public school district and school serving students in any of grades 3-8 in the three states. We then compare the two sets of estimates in order to assess how well the latter replicates the former. We do this separately for districts and schools. We find that the longitudinal and cohort growth measures are generally highly correlated in these three states. On average, the cohort growth measures largely rank schools and districts similarly to longitudinal growth measures. The correlations at the district-level (r=0.87) are somewhat higher than the school-level correlations (r=0.80), which reflects the fact that there is less student mobility among districts than among schools. Additionally, in cases where student mobility in and out of schools or districts is high, the measures are less well aligned. Mobility rates are higher, on average, in small schools and districts, schools with long grade spans, and in charter schools. As a result the alignment of the two measures is weaker in these cases. We conclude that the cohort growth measures are useful proxies for longitudinal growth measures in most, but not all cases. [This work was completed in collaboration with Michigan's Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI) and the Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA).]

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has solicited public comment on pandemic-related revisions to its important "Learning Time" regulation, 603 CMR 27.00. The revisions establish baseline procedural and substantive requirements for in-person, hybrid, and remote learning. Appreciating that the regulation is meant to set forth only the most fundamental matters, with many other matters contained in a parallel guidance document. The revised regulation states that remote learning must be "aligned to state standards." This policy brief responds to the DESE's solicitation of public comments on the regulation. The Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research continues to advocate for those recommendations, and for maximum preparedness and rigor in the actual delivery of remote learning. At this moment, Pioneer emphasizes these important areas: training for teachers and parents, which addresses both technical and substantive aspects of remote learning; highly accessible lines of communication between school personnel and families--such as online or audio hotlines--so technological and other problems can be resolved quickly and during as much of the day as reasonably possible; and a constant process of critical self-evaluation, resolving problems and making improvements wherever possible.

With Massachusetts' school closure extending until the end of the 2019-20 academic year, Pioneer Institute urges that Massachusetts schools offer meaningful online and virtual learning programs, doing everything possible to eliminate problematic inconsistencies across Bay State school districts. Pioneer further urges Massachusetts to develop and distribute for timely public comment two plans, one that will remedy this semester's educational gaps during the 2020-21 school year, and another to address future extended school closures, if and when they might occur. Relatedly, after this crisis passes, Massachusetts should take steps toward generally improving its knowledge and capabilities with respect to online learning, which Pioneer, Bay State lawmakers, and nationally-recognized experts on digital learning have long identified as a significant area of weakness in Massachusetts' K-12 education system.

This study finds that, breaking with decades of slow improvement, U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago. This descriptive analysis is designed to be understood by a general, non-technical readership. It primarily compares student achievement gains on the NAEP after implementation of Common Core to student achievement gains in the years preceding implementation of Common Core. Since test score results, by their nature, tend to "bounce" somewhat from one year to the next and gains are rarely perfectly smooth, a significant part of the analysis determines the average annual gain since implementation of Common Core and compares that to the average annual gain before implementation of Common Core. This report also includes a section addressing defenses by Common Core advocates denying responsibility for the poor results. The following state samples are included: (1) California; (2) Florida; (3) Georgia; (4) Illinois; (5) Kentucky; (6) Massachusetts; and (7) New York.

This paper looks at the popularity of after-school mathematics by focusing on the Kumon and Russian School of Mathematics models. In 1954, Toru Kumon, a high school math teacher in Japan, designed a series of math worksheets to help improve the test scores of his son Takeshi, a second grader. Toru's goal was to teach Takeshi how to learn independently through the worksheets and improve his calculation skills prior to reaching high school. By working every day on the problems, Takeshi was able to reach the level of differential and integral calculus when he was just a few months into the sixth grade. The Kumon model is based on four elements: (1) Individualized instruction; (2) Self-learning; (3) Small-step worksheets; and (4) Kumon instructors. Parents who want to give their children a head start in math before elementary school can enroll them in Kumon as young as age 3. From that age they can stay with the program through high school or until they complete the program. In the U.S. alone, Kumon has grown from more than 182,000 students and nearly 1,300 centers in 2008 to more than 279,000 students and more than 1500 centers in 2018. While the Kumon method involves repeating mathematical processes until students over-learn them to automaticity, the Russian School of Mathematics (RSM) promotes itself as believing in just the opposite. The RSM model was founded by Inessa Rifkin in 1997 with Irina Khavinson, a friend, educator, and fellow Russian immigrant, after concluding that her son Ilya was not receiving the same mathematics education that she received as a student in the Soviet Union. Their goal was to translate their own experiences with specialized Russian math programs into a school that offered the same opportunity to American children. Two decades later about 25,000 students are enrolled with RSM today, in 40 locations in 11 states and Canada. Russian School of Mathematics students attend a classroom once per week for varying lengths of time, depending on grade: 90 minutes for kindergarten through third grade; two hours for grades four through six; and two-and-a-half hours for grades seven and above. Algebra and geometry are on separate tracks starting in the sixth grade, though students may enroll in both. This paper reviews each model's methods, highlights their best practices, and shows how they complement or run parallel with mathematics taught in traditional classrooms.

In 2010, the Massachusetts Legislature lifted the cap on the number of charter schools that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) can authorize in low-performing school districts. The "smart cap" requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to rank district performance (based on student outcomes) annually. Districts that fall into the lowest 10 percent of those rankings are eligible for an increase in the amount of tuition that they can pay to charter schools. Whereas the law limits district tuition payments to charter schools at 9 percent of net school spending, the smart cap raises that limit to 18 percent of net school spending in the Commonwealth's lowest performing districts. Until 2015, the Commonwealth ranked district performance solely according to the number of students scoring proficient in core subject areas on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests. In 2015, BESE amended the smart cap regulations and began using an additional measure, the student growth percentile (SGP), as 25 percent of the formula for determining district rankings. This paper presents data on the relationship between enrollment and SGP and its impact on determining the lowest performing districts in Massachusetts. Based on these data, the authors recommend that the Commonwealth stop using SGP as a factor in determining eligibility for an increase in the charter school cap and revert to a formula that uses absolute proficiency as the sole measure. The Commonwealth should also separate determinations about increases in the net school spending cap from its overall accountability system. Other recommendations include mitigating the negative impacts of the current formula for existing and prospective charter operators and increasing transparency around the purpose and use of SGP more broadly. [This report was written with Bruce Bean & Rebekah Paxton.]

Sixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs) in 26 states have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. We provide a comprehensive description of how individual reforms affected resource allocation to low- and high-income districts within states, including both financial and non-financial outcomes. After summarizing the heterogeneity of individual SFR impacts, we then examine its correlates, identifying both policy and legislative/political factors. Taken together, this research aims to provide a rich description of variation in states' responses to SFRs, as well as explanation of this heterogeneity as it relates to contextual factors.

Serious history instruction in K-12 U.S. schools has been in decline for decades. History education in Massachusetts has, until now, fared somewhat better than in the nation at large. In 1993 the commonwealth enacted the Massachusetts Education Reform Act--a bipartisan plan to improve education--which mandated core standards and assessments in history and social science, among other disciplines. The Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework (the 2003 Framework) produced under this mandate contained strong, flexible grade-by-grade standards for core essential knowledge. In 2009, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (the State Board) suspended the 2003 Framework, and it never went into effect. In 2016, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) instead launched a rewrite of the 2003 Framework, in good measure to realign Massachusetts history education around service-learning and civic engagement. In 2017 the DESE presented the revisions to the State Board, which approved them to be posted for public comment in January 2018. This paper contends that the January 2018 Public Comment Draft of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework (2018 Revision) eviscerates the 2003 Framework. Among other things, the 2018 Revision eliminates the standards-based and curricular linkage to the already developed Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test for U.S. history, while substituting meaningless expectations for each grade. This paper recommends that the Massachusetts State Board reject the 2018 Revision in its entirety and immediately put into effect both the 2003 Framework and its accompanying MCAS test. [Preface By Paul Reid, co-author with William Manchester.]

The fiscal and educational consequences of charter expansion for non-charter students are central issues in the debate over charter schools. Do charter schools drain resources and high-achieving peers from non-charter schools? This paper answers these questions using an empirical strategy that exploits a 2011 reform that lifted caps on charter schools for underperforming districts in Massachusetts. We use complementary synthetic control instrumental variables (IV-SC) and differences-in-differences instrumental variables (IV-DiD) estimators. The results suggest greater charter attendance increases per-pupil expenditures in traditional public schools and induces them to shift expenditure from support services to instruction and salaries. At the same time, charter expansion has a small positive effect on non-charter students' achievement.

For awhile thousands of children in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have been denied in fact (de facto) the special education services to which they, according to Federal Civil Rights Law (de jure), are entitled. According to the Massachusetts' Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), private schools are not entitled to federal funds for their special needs students. Should a private school student need services, they are to receive them at their local public school. As a result, they would have to travel to receive services, meaning a student would miss considerable school time and parents would have to take significant time off from work to transport the student. The authors of the white paper: (1) present how and why this state of affairs has persisted for so long; and (2) offer recommendations which, if implemented, would correct these wrongs that so negatively impact in Massachusetts thousands of private school students.

Nearly two dozen states now administer online exams. These tests have real consequences: their results feed into accountability systems, which have been used for more than a decade to hold schools and districts accountable for their students' learning. We examine the rollout of computer-based testing in Massachusetts over 2 years to investigate test mode effects. Crucial to the study design is the fact that the state administers the same exam (PARCC) in online and offline formats each year during the transitional period. We find mode effects of about 0.10 standard deviations in math and 0.25 standard deviations in English language arts (ELA). Our preferred estimates of the effects of online testing in the second year of administration suggest that mode effects for second-time test takers were about one third as large as the first year in math and about half as large in ELA. There is little evidence of systematic variation in mode effects by student demographic groups, although on ELA tests they are larger for students scoring at the bottom of the achievement distribution.

The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the states that have designed strong history standards and note what has made them exceptional so other states might do the same. They include Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina. The report draws on interviews with individuals from each state who sat on advisory boards and panels, who shared details on their review process, and identified individuals consulted to design their standards, timetables and outcomes. Members of the state design committees included chairmen of high school history or social studies departments, elementary and middle school teachers, college history professors, members of historical societies and parents. The report also includes seven core recommendations related to process; non-partisanship; the importance of detail and clarity in standards; the need to focus on academic content; the value of civics-based content; encouraging the reading of history in each grade; and finally to promote historical writing in each grade. In all, the paper shows that states can create robust K-12 standards that are clear enough for teachers to employ effectively and that enrich students' understanding of U.S. history. [Preface by Daniel Walker Howe.]

Although many may be surprised at the growth of homeschooling during the past few decades, the real surprise is probably how that growth happened and that it continues. Home school advocates and practitioners have succeeded despite a lack of funding, recruiting efforts, publicity, and grant money from philanthropic billionaires. They have faced opposition from the National Education Association (NEA), obstacles imposed by individual school districts and various state restrictions, regulations, and requirements. There is also little if any professional development for parent-instructors and virtually no future career path (or pensions) for those parents. Systemically, there is a lack of institutional knowledge with which to keep the homeschooling movement going forward. This paper attempts to elucidate some of these issues by reviewing a brief history of homeschooling, the challenges associated with defining and counting homeschoolers, the predominant reasons for homeschooling, and the critical role parental choice plays in the decision to homeschool. By becoming more knowledgeable about the practices and benefits of homeschooling, traditional educators can begin to offer parents information, support, and encouragement, treating them as educational colleagues who care deeply about children's learning.

While there are many causes at the root of the academic achievement gap between high- and low-income students, one that is seldom acknowledged is summer learning loss, which disproportionally affects low-income and minority students. With a wide achievement gap across all regions of Massachusetts, private schools in the commonwealth should consider offering summer enrichment programs, which have been shown to promote student achievement, to underserved students as a tool to combat this trend. This paper compares the costs and tuition at typical summer programs run by elite private schools to "mission-based" programs that actively recruit disadvantaged students to offer high-quality, longer-term educational experiences. Findings indicate that elite schools often offer single-summer day programs for $5,500 or more per student for five weeks of instruction, while programming at other schools that extend the program for twelve months, multiple summers or multiple full years can operate at less than half the cost. Not only are these expanded programs cost-efficient, but they fulfill a mission to educate underprivileged students who are most at-risk for summer learning loss.

The Science and Technology Standards for the teaching and learning of K-12 science in Massachusetts were issued in April 2016. These were adapted, as the document explains, from K-12 science-education documents that have come generally to be known as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Common features include: (1) integration of science and engineering practices; (2) Grade-by-grade standards for elementary school that include all science, technology, and engineering disciplines; and (3) application of science in engineering contexts. In this report, the authors review the new standards and assess the positives and negatives of them.

Recent studies continue to shine light on high-performing charter schools. While Boston-area charter schools--a concentrated group of high-performers--garner more attention than others, many excellent schools outside of Boston have been quietly chipping away at the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. One of these schools is the SABIS International Charter School (SICS) in Springfield, MA, a school that has been named a "top high school". What makes SICS a "top school?" It prepares students to persist in college and enables it students, the vast majority of whom are economically disadvantaged, to "perform better than statistical expectations." That is, students at SICS not only outperform their peers in similar schools on standardized tests of achievement, they also embody the idea that "demography is not destiny." Founded in 1995, SICS was among the first charter schools established in Massachusetts. It serves students in grades K-12 and has a clear, two-pronged mission. The first part of the mission is academic: to prepare students for success in college and to be critical thinkers who are intellectually engaged and excited about life-long learning. The second part of the SICS mission is to produce ethical, responsible "citizens of the world"; people who care about their community and are engaged with social issues. To understand how SICS students defy "statistical expectations," it is necessary to understand the SABIS approach to curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This report provides their best practices by data-driven instruction, answers how they meet the demand for better school options, and offers recommendations for struggling schools.

In July 2010, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) voted to adopt Common Core's standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in place of the state's own standards in these two subjects. The vote was based largely on recommendations by Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester and then Secretary of Education Paul Reville, and on the conclusions in three studies comparing the state's standards with Common Core's, all financed directly or indirectly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all issued by organizations that are among the primary boosters of Common Core (Achieve, Inc., Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education). Nevertheless, annual state testing for school and district accountability continued as part of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) mandated by the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA). To accommodate the adoption of Common Core's standards, tests were based on both the old standards and an annually increasing number of Common Core's standards until 2015, when all of the pre-Common Core standards in ELA and mathematics were archived, and the MCAS tests were presumably only Common Core-based. After the vote to adopt Common Core's standards in 2010, the state joined the testing consortium called Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), funded by the United States Department of Education (USED) to develop common tests for its member states (about 25 initially), but with the costs for administering the tests to be borne by the states and local school districts. Since 2011, PARCC has been developing tests that BESE is expected to vote to adopt in the late fall of 2015 as the state's official Common Core-based tests in place of Common Corebased MCAS tests. (Indeed, the commissioner of education and his staff at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) have been implementing a transition to PARCC tests for several years.) BESE's official vote will be guided, again, by the recommendations of the same commissioner of education (who now also chairs PARCC's Governing Board), the current Secretary of Education James Peyser, and the conclusions reached in "external" studies comparing PARCC and MCAS tests as well as in about 20 studies directly authorized by PARCC. Two of the external studies are listed in the state's 2015 application to the USED for a waiver from No Child Left Behind Act requirements and are by organizations that had originally recommended adoption of Common Core. One, issued by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education in February 2015, claims that PARCC tests predict college readiness better than MCAS tests did. A second, to be completed by the Fordham Institute and a partner, is to be issued in time for BESE's vote. A third, issued in mid-October 2015 by Mathematica Policy Research (and requested by the state's Executive Office of Education) claims both tests are equally predictive of college readiness, although its report has major shortcomings. This White Paper will be a fourth external report on the question BESE's vote will address; it is motivated by our interest in providing an analysis of how MCAS and PARCC assess reading and writing. Much less national attention has been paid to Common Core-based assessments of reading and writing than of mathematics, yet reading and writing skills are just as important to readiness for college and career as is mathematics. This White Paper's central recommendation is that Massachusetts use a testing system for K-12 that is much less costly, more rigorous academically, and much more informative about individual student performance, and with much less instructional time spent on test preparation and administration, than the current PARCC tests. Both the PARCC tests and the current MCAS tests in grade 10 are weak, albeit for different reasons, and neither indicates eligibility for a high school diploma, college readiness, or career readiness. In essence, the authors recommend that BESE reject the PARCC assessment system and vote for the MCAS system but on the condition that the responsibility for developing and administering K-12 standards and tests be assigned to an organization in Massachusetts independent of DESE and the state's education schools. This organization must focus squarely on providing the best possible content standards from disciplinary experts in the arts, sciences, and engineering throughout the state and be capable of providing oversight of high school standards and tests. If carried out, these recommendations would ensure the legacy and future promise of MERA. The following are appended: (1) Critique of Criteria for Evaluating Common Core-Aligned Assessments, (2) Links to Public Hearings and Other Sources of Public Comment on MCAS or PARCC, and (3) A Randomly-Chosen Test Item Used on the 2014 Grade 10 MCAS Math Test. Also provided are additional recommendations, an about the authors section, and endnotes.

Aside from effects on nearby property values, research is sparse on how foreclosures may generate negative externalities. Employing a unique dataset that matches individual student records from Boston Public Schools--including test scores, demographics, home address moves, and school changes--with real estate records indicating whether the student lived at an address involved in foreclosure, we investigate the degree to which the test scores of students attending high-foreclosure schools suffer, even among students not directly experiencing foreclosure. We also explore the impact on individual test scores of school-level (by grade and year) student mobility--that is, inflows of new students to a school during the school year--including mobility induced by residential moves (in some cases caused by foreclosures) and mobility arising for other reasons. We find fairly robust evidence that higher student mobility at a school, induced by residential moves, imposes significant negative effects on test scores of students at the receiving school. Beyond this channel, school-level foreclosure prevalence does not appear to generate externalities. Since we also find that residential-move-induced school changes appear to harm the outcomes of the school-changers themselves, policies that seek to limit such changes within the academic year may uniformly raise test scores, at least in the short run. The following are appended: (1) Math Test Score Regressions, (2) ELA Test Score Regressions; and 14 tables.

While it is generally understood that defined benefit pension systems concentrate benefits on career teachers and impose costs on mobile teachers, there has been very little analysis of the magnitude of these effects. The authors develop a measure of implicit redistribution of pension wealth among teachers at varying ages of separation. Compared to a neutral system, often about half of an entering cohort's net pension wealth is redistributed to teachers who separate in their fifties from those who separate earlier. There is some variation across six state systems. This implies large costs for interstate mobility. Estimates show teachers who split a thirty-year career between two pension plans often lose over half their net pension wealth compared to teachers who complete a career in a single system. Plan options that permit purchases of service years mitigate few or none of these losses. It is difficult to explain these patterns of costs and benefits on efficiency grounds. More likely explanations include the relative influence of senior versus junior educators in interest group politics and a coordination problem between states. (Contains 7 tables, 16 figures, and 40 footnotes.)

This report is an initial effort to provide systematic information on teacher contracts in Massachusetts. In 1999, the Pioneer Institute solicited copies of the current contract from all districts in the state. Forty districts were selected to reflect the makeup of the Commonwealth. This study confirms that teacher compensation is determined by rigid schedules that reward solely the accumulation of college credits and experience. Teacher evaluation and discipline vary considerably among districts. Contracts vary considerably in the way they treat transfers. Few districts are required to make transfer decisions solely on the basis of seniority. When layoffs are required, most districts in the sample proceed in reverse order of seniority in the affected program areas. Contracts limit teachers' workloads by restricting class size, number and length of classes, number of preparations and subjects, length of the work year, and the number and length of after-school meetings. Two general conclusions are drawn: (1) there is considerable variation among contracts; and (2) although administrators are constrained by contracts, they do not take advantage of negotiated flexible language to serve the educational mission of their schools. The report ends with 18 tables exhibiting contract characteristics for each district selected in the study. (RT)

The University of Massachusetts McCormack Institute Poll of attitudes and opinions related to the political, economic, and social life of Massachusetts was expanded in 1998 to include a larger sample of minority respondents than in previous years. In 1998, the sample included 127 African Americans, 114 Asian Americans, 107 Latinos, and 381 Whites. The rapidly changing racial and ethnic diversity of Massachusetts was regarded as a "good thing" by a large proportion of all groups. Minority group members were less likely than Whites to think that things were getting better for minorities, and they were more likely to agree that there was a long way to go before minorities (specifically African Americans) have the same chance in life White people have. Thirty-three percent of African Americans, thirty-one percent of Latinos, and twenty-five percent of Asian Americans reported that they had a personal experience with discrimination during the last 3 months. African Americans and Latinos considered crime the most important issue, with schools/education the second most important social issue. Asian Americans thought schools were the most important issue, as did Whites. A majority of all groups indicated support for affirmative action. Respondents differed dramatically when asked whether schools should teach only in English or in some cases in a language other than English. Sixty-one percent of Whites supported English only, but eighty-one percent of Latinos favored instruction in other languages as well. Among Asian Americans, responses were split fairly evenly. There was general agreement among all groups that standardized tests for high school graduates are desirable. Almost half of all Whites expressed a great deal of confidence in the public schools, but responses of other groups were less favorable. Other questions involved the role of government, confidence in institutions, political participation and citizenship, and partisan identification and ideology. An appendix contains the poll questionnaire. (Contains 17 graphs.) (SLD)

This study examined efforts at the local level to reduce the fragmentation of services to students with and without disabilities through the consolidation or blending of federal and state categorical educational programs. Twenty-two state and local program administrators in California, Maryland, and Massachusetts were interviewed. Findings include examples of collaborative programs and of administrative mechanisms such as school improvement plans, consolidated staffing plans, and schoolwide Title I programs. Specific challenges to program consolidation are identified, including multifunded students, bilingual teacher shortages, Title I program audits, and nonsupplanting requirements. Finally, the human factor in change is addressed, noting the roles of program leadership, lack of knowledge, advocacy for students and programs, teacher attitudes and qualifications, and the "power" of special education. Findings suggest that there is a clear trend to foster greater collaboration at the school building level, with the focus on inclusion of students with disabilities having a significant influence. Additionally, changing demographics and increasing fiscal concerns are creating pressures on local school districts to use resources more efficiently and find more flexible ways to educate increasingly diverse student populations. A list of interviewees and interview questions is appended. (DB)

This paper is about the funding status of teachers' retirement pension schemes. Its goal is to relate the accounting for the funding of these pension obligations to the endemic, systematic, and fundamentally fraudulent system of accounting our country uses to assess the financial positions of federal, state, and local government as well as many financial and non-financial private enterprises. Indeed, the paper argues that fraudulent accounting and misrepresentation is the defining element of Ponzi schemes and the real reason we find such schemes repugnant. Furthermore, any public or private enterprise that engages in fundamentally fraudulent accounting can fairly be characterized as running a Ponzi scheme. In this regard, it seems fully appropriate to characterize many, if not most, teachers' retirement plans as Ponzi schemes. (Contains 17 footnotes.)

Limited information exists on how early career teachers, particularly those in "Generation Y", feel about the pension system and potential reforms to the pension system. This paper presents an analysis of the appeal of different aspects of pension plans; their influence on charter versus traditional public school teachers; and how retirement benefits influence career decisions. Findings are drawn from a pilot study surveying teachers (n=52) in years two through ten on particular characteristics of defined benefit and defined contribution plans. Key findings include: (1) lack of portability is a frustration to early career teachers; (2) early career teachers have an interest in defined contribution plans; (3) charter school teachers are more open to pension reform; and (4) teachers who plan to stay in the profession are more open to pension reform than might have been expected. A survey is appended.

Teachers may be the most important element of an effective school, but does that mean that K-12 improvement must wait on the ability of schools or systems to recruit, nurture, and retain outstanding teachers? Such a strategy implies that widespread excellence hinges on the ability of publicly funded school systems to attract more than 3.3 million superstars--or more than 200,000 such hires a year. The challenge of recruiting the way to excellence is a daunting proposition. The author is skeptical that it is a feasible one. He notes that even today's successful charter schools have succeeded by creating a "No Excuses" culture reliant on their ability to attract talented and passionate recruits, but he questions whether these models are capable of working at the scale that the nation requires. Indeed, given the limited talent pool of promising hires and the exhausting demands these schools make of faculty, the author considers whether such models can ever effectively serve more than a handful of the nation's students. The author's purpose in this paper is not to question the value of these ventures but to illuminate the constraints of their current strategy and offer an alternative vision that may enable these success stories to continue to expand. Taking a close look at eight Boston-area No Excuses schools, he asks two questions: "Is the model sustainable? And can it be widely reproduced?" Given their heavy reliance on scarce human capital--particularly recent graduates of elite colleges and universities--he argues that scalability could be pursued through efforts to recruit more talent into teaching but that a more promising, overlooked strategy would provide teachers of varied abilities with comprehensive instructional systems demonstrated to produce academic results. An appendix is included. (Contains 26 tables, 1 figure, 1 footnote and 58 notes.)

Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns of benefits. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We consider four states for specific analysis: Arkansas, Missouri, California and Massachusetts. There are interesting variations among these states' formulas, which affect the incentive to retire early. We identify key factors in the defined benefit formulas that drive such patterns and likely consequences for employee behavior. We examine the efficiency and equity consequences of these systems and lessons that might be drawn for pension reform. (Contains 1 table, 8 figures and 18 footnotes.) [A previous version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Finance Association in Baltimore, Maryland.]

This paper discusses the potential of individual States for encouraging voluntary desegregation at the local level. Desegregation history and State strategies in five States--California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Washington--are closely examined. In all of the States studied, State laws provide the State agency with considerable power. Generally, these laws make racial imbalance actionable, even in the absence of an intentional violation. The examination reveals successes and failures within every State. Individuals within the State agencies responsible for school desegregation appear to be committed and vigorous, but reduced resources and competition with other State priorities threaten their capacity to pursue traditional strategies. As a result, these State agencies are searching for new strategies, particularly ones that directly combine a concern for racial balance with improving student achievement. While specific ways of accomplishing the twin goals of desegregation and quality education are far from clear, those involved believe that both can be met. (Author/GC)