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This paper reviews overall student performance as well as the performance of student subgroups on the assessment system developed in response to the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (MERA), the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Comparing students in Massachusetts to students in the rest of the United States or against students in other countries can not only confirm the rigor of the MCAS, but the comparison can also provide meaning to MCAS scores and ensure that they accurately measure student performance. There are two primary international exams given at regular intervals: (1) the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS); and (2) the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The strong performance on the international exams across several years and subjects, especially on TIMSS, confirmed the quality of Massachusetts K-12 schools.

This paper examines the impact, characteristics, and entrepreneurial proclivities of foreign-born college graduates in the United States. A significant body of research has found that immigrants are more likely to start businesses than those born in the U.S., and the propensity of international students to concentrate in STEM fields indicates enormous potential for economic contributions and innovation. Yet the static nature of the immigration system, with visa pathways and restrictions that discourage business creation, hamper the nation's ability to take full advantage of the benefits immigrants can provide. In fact, this study finds that the U.S. immigration system likely delays foreign-born graduates from creating incorporated firms by as many as five years. The authors estimate that the creation of 150,000 incorporated firms and 580,000 jobs were delayed between 2013 and 2021. Without reform, the U.S. will continue to depress high-value firm creation by international students and cease to be the primary destination of global talent.

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.

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.

The United States has been cultivating STEM talent for decades with great success, but that robust talent pipeline is threatened by a growing STEM teacher shortage. Left unaddressed, that shortage could curtail employment in STEM professions and the many related careers that increasingly require some degree of scientific and technological literacy. While the STEM teacher shortage is a national problem, the effects are likely to be felt more acutely in a state such as Massachusetts with a high concentration of STEM jobs. This paper provides an overview of the causes of the STEM teacher shortage and offers three recommendations to address it.

In Spring 2022, Pioneer Institute published "The Boston Publics Schools' Road to Receivership," which detailed the findings of the 2019 state-commissioned, third-party report evaluating outcomes and operations in the Boston Public Schools (BPS). The report was scathing, citing years of declining enrollment, low test scores, financial mismanagement, and poor oversight and support of schools. When schools reopened in 2022 following the pandemic, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and other advocates for change publicly revisited the report's findings and opted to strengthen and renew an agreement with BPS that details the improvements the district needs to make and how the state will support its efforts. This article details aspects of the 2022 report in the context of news reports about the BPS and uncovers progress that has been made and has yet to be made on key issues. It concludes with broad recommendations for state and district action pertaining to some of the report's key findings. [For related report, "The Boston Public Schools' Road to Receivership. White Paper No. 247," see ED617699.]

As the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides to public and private school students and schools wide-ranging academic and educational supports. This paper provides a historical review of: (1) the federal government's role in education; (2) the creation and passage of ESEA; and (3) ESEA's subsequent development and reauthorizations. The authors next describe ESEA's application to parentally placed private school students. The law makes it clear that private school students are to participate equitably in the benefits that ESEA confers. Upon identifying and describing the challenges to this equitable participation that private school students and stakeholders have faced under ESEA's most recent reauthorization (ESSA), the authors conclude by offering concrete recommendations on how ESEA's next reauthorization can effectively address these challenges.

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.

Despite a strong track record of success and parent demand, charter school growth has slowed considerably in recent years in Massachusetts and nationwide. In the Commonwealth's large urban school districts--especially Boston--this lack of growth is attributable to charter school caps that prevent the state from authorizing new charter school seats. But some school districts in the Commonwealth have room to grow. They have space available for charter expansion under the state's net school spending (NSS) cap and demand for charter schools in the form of waiting lists. A number of those districts are in Gateway Cities, "midsize urban centers that anchor regional economies around the state." The following paper provides data on the Gateway Cities with room to expand under the NSS cap. It also provides examples of how the politics of charter schooling-- both state and local--have prevented high quality operators from serving students and families who desire a charter school education. Finally, this paper concludes with recommendations to change state charter statute as well as processes and procedures related to charter school authorizing in the Commonwealth. These recommendations would make it more difficult for the state or any locality to deny families the charter school options they desire.

JEM Learning is a new microschool community that provides families with a child-centered alternative to both traditional public and private schools. Microschools like JEM Learning are small, multi-age learning communities with paid educators that are reminiscent of the one-room schoolhouse model. They were gaining traction prior to 2020, but their popularity has soared amidst the education disruption of the past few years. In Massachusetts, numerous microschool collaboratives have sprouted, offering more individualized learning options and paving a pathway for a more bottom-up, decentralized education model. This policy brief urges Massachusetts policymakers to encourage the proliferation and progress of non-traditional models that offer families creative, flexible, personalized and low-cost private education options.

This report focuses highlights turnarounds at two Massachusetts schools, Worcester Technical High School and the Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy in Springfield, that were once known for high dropout rates and low graduation rates. The report shows that these schools now excel due to new leadership, community investment, and committed teachers. The report analyzes how Worcester Tech and Putnam Academy -- schools with high numbers of low-income and special needs students -- leapt from the bottom of Massachusetts voc-tech rankings to become leaders among local schools. The Pioneer paper includes interviews with administrators and presents several recommendations that could help transform struggling voc-tech schools.

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 summarizes the findings of MA DESE's 2020 review of the Boston Public Schools, highlighting key findings around the teaching and learning, operational, financial, and enrollment challenges the state identified. It also describes why, according to the report, BPS persistently struggles in these areas and how its struggles negatively impact students. Finally, the paper describes several options the district and the state have for rectifying the problems and helping BPS meet its constitutional and moral obligations to the students and families it serves. Ultimately, it recommends that the state place BPS in receivership, a controversial model that may be the district's best hope for recovery.

Over the last quarter-century, tax-credit scholarship (TCS) policies have helped hundreds of thousands of American families provide their children with the learning environment that meets their individual needs. Although less well-known than school vouchers, TCS policies are the most-used form of private school choice. Now available in 23 states, more than 325,000 students nationwide use tax-credit scholarships to attend the school of their family's choice. TCS policies create an incentive for taxpayers to contribute to nonprofit scholarship organizations that aid families with tuition and, in some states, other K-12 educational expenses. This paper explores the central design features of TCS policies--such as eligibility, the tax credit value, tax credit caps, scholarship size and uses, and academic accountability provisions--and outlines the different approaches taken by the TCS policies in each state. The paper also offers suggestions regarding each feature for policymakers who want to design a TCS policy that most likely to succeed at its central purpose: empowering families to provide their children with the education that works best for them. Finally, the appendix offers policymakers with a wide variety of additional resources, including model legislation, parent satisfaction and public opinion surveys, research on fiscal effects, various policy briefs on tax-credit scholarships, information about the constitutional landscape, and public relations resources.

This report, intended primarily for civics reformers considering how best to defend and improve traditional American civics education, surveys a selection of different civics offerings, both the traditional and the radical. Surveyed providers include organizations such as the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, We the People, and Hillsdale College's 1776 Curriculum. The report assesses both how they approach civics education and their ideological content. The report will also judge each organization's effectiveness--although no one knows exactly what is being taught in each classroom in America, much less precisely what students take from their education. Finally, it will provide recommendations about how civics reformers should build upon this existing array of civics curriculum resources to work most effectively to reclaim America's civics education.

This toolkit that can empower state leaders to transform their vocational-technical schools for the better. It builds on "Hands-On Achievement," a book detailing the Massachusetts model that Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research published earlier in 2022. The toolkit describes three keys to success, provides a brief history of Massachusetts's vocational-technical (voc-tech) success story, and offers five recommendations addressed both to the voc-tech community within Massachusetts as well as to lawmakers and voc-tech advocates in other states. In both cases, the recommendations offer guidance on how to strengthen and reform existing career, vocational, and technical education or to create such options where few or none exist.

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.

Digital learning, the use of computers and the internet to study courses taught in the classroom, is viewed by many educators as a breakthrough to helping those at-risk students stay in school and earn their diplomas. The flexibility afforded by digital learning, with students working on their own time at their own pace, is a way for students to meet the requirements of their courses while handling pressing responsibilities outside of school, problems at home or personal issues. Yet parents should scrutinize digital programs closely. Their quality and effectiveness vary widely. Students are poorly served by point-and-click assessments with no engagement, virtual schools with videos instead of real teachers and programs without pacing and scheduling support. This report presents ideas and examples of how teachers and policymakers across the country are using virtual learning to improve educational outcomes for at-risk students.

After schools closed in March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students, families and teachers had to shift learning from in-class to online. But the switch to remote learning was hasty and disorganized in many school districts. Families struggled with the technology and coordinating schedules at home, while teachers tried to shift the in-person model to teaching through a computer. The dissatisfaction caused many families to believe that the remote learning they were experiencing was what takes place in full-time virtual schools. In fact the two are much different. This report includes information on how to distinguish between questionable and quality virtual programs.

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.]

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.

For many years the co-operative education program at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Boston has fallen short of supporters' hopes for it. The number of students it placed in paid jobs with local employers was often below that of co-op programs at other career vocational technical education (CVTE) schools and mostly focused on three or four of Madison Park's 20 industry disciplines. Much of the reason for the disappointing performance has been attributed to struggles the school has endured during the last decade, by now a well-worn story. In 2016 Madison Park was designated a Level 4 school by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), earning an "underperforming" label. Accordingly, school officials created a turnaround plan that they began implementing in June of that year. The co-operative education program, in which students receive hands-on training while being paid, is showing positive signs. The number of students working co-op jobs, though still well behind other regional voc-tech schools, has grown. But can Madison Park notch a win beyond its own walls? More specifically, can it play a larger role in creating educational and economic opportunity in Boston by supplying needed skilled labor for Boston-based businesses? State officials forecast thousands of job opportunities during the next eight years for workers who have the skills and education to do the job. Will the school created to train those workers fulfill its promise? This is the second of two papers by Pioneer Institute about the recovery effort at Madison Park. The first report, published in September of this year, examined the turnaround plan and reported on its progress as judged by the 10-year review of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. This paper looks at the school's co-operative education program because of its important place within the curriculum and the potential it holds. The paper draws on interviews with school officials, state employment data and other CVTE educators and advocates. [For the first report, "Madison Park Technical Vocational High School Turnaround Update. White Paper No. 215," see ED607841.]

Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Boston is attempting a turnaround and has been for decades. In 2016, after having been designated a Level 4 school by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), a stamp that branded it "underperforming," school officials created a plan they began implementing in June of that year. Since the new plan began, some signs of improvement have appeared. The graduation rate, which was 57 percent in 2017, was above 68 percent in 2019. The dropout rate, once above 6 percent, is now under 5 percent. Enrollment, which tumbled by half from 2005 to 2017, has climbed more than 17 percent in the past three years. Advanced instruction has emerged as a strong point for the school. Dual enrollment partnerships with several local colleges have enabled many Madison Park students to earn college credits before graduating. In 2020, two students earned their associate's degrees. The end of the report offers recommendations.

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.

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.]

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.

A new normal is expected to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. What it will look like is still to be determined. But digital learning is sure to play a larger role in K-12 and college education. For students with learning disabilities or special needs, as well as their parents and teachers, the goal will be to find what works best and for which students. This brief looks at the challenges of instructing special needs students in an online environment and includes best practices and solutions. Interviews were conducted with special education authorities, and research included materials and resources used with special needs children.

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.

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.

The coronavirus known as COVID-19 has worked its way into nearly every corner of the globe and caused, among other restrictions, a shutdown of most schools across the United States. Desperate not to lose time away from the classroom, school officials are rushing to shift instruction to the Internet. Districts and schools face a daunting challenge to convert as much of their instruction as possible, as swiftly as possible, in an organized, effective manner. The time students spend at home online continuing their education can neither be monitored by professional educators nor assessed to determine what they are learning and retaining. This brief presents some important considerations for school administrators and teachers as they attempt to shift their efforts to a virtual platform. It refers to students, families, teachers and technology. At a time when there is much uncertainty about public health, employment and personal finances, it will hopefully assist in the continuing effort to move education forward. [This report was also prepared by Arizona State University Prep Digital.]

The states and localities, not the federal government, primarily control and fund K-12 education. As a major source of revenue and with its historic role in our federal system, the states are the driving presence in most every education policy area. That is true in the current efforts to adjust education programs to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis. State leaders must assume main responsibility for setting policy and addressing student needs. That said, clearer guidance on relevant federal law can be helpful to school officials, and also stakeholders, including parents who need to clearly understand relevant law as they develop and voice their own opinions on local plans to address the crisis. That is especially true when it comes to the ongoing transition to digital and online learning, where federal guidance and law can be seen as vague or contradictory. Pioneer Institute calls on the U.S. Department of Education (USED) to quickly establish comprehensive but concise guidelines for federal law around school closures.

As state leaders consider needed updates to the Commonwealth's school funding formula, they should remember just how well the approach taken by Tom Birmingham, former Massachusetts state Senate president, and co-author of the 1993 Education Reform Act worked. Beginning in 1993, Massachusetts' SAT scores rose for 13 consecutive years. The state's scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shot up, too. By 2005, Massachusetts students became the first to score best in the nation in all four major NAEP categories (fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math). Since then, they have repeated the feat on every subsequent administration of NAEP except one. While American students as a whole lag behind their international peers, the 2007 and 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study results showed that Massachusetts students were competitive with their counterparts in places like Japan, Korea, and Singapore. In 2007, the Bay State's eighth graders even tied for first place internationally in science. The current formula for funding K-12 public education calculates a "foundation budget," which is the minimum needed for a school district to provide its students with a quality education. Another formula determines how much each district can afford to contribute, and the state fills the gap between that amount and the foundation budget. Some wealthier districts contribute more than is required, but every district receives a minimum annual state contribution of about $1,750 per student. State funding, known as Chapter 70, jumped by 227.4 percent per pupil between 1993 and 2019, rising from $1.592 billion to $5.212 billion (see figure 1). This rate of increase exceeded the rate of increase in per pupil net school spending by municipalities (excluding Chapter 70 funding) of 156.8 percent, rising from $3.704 billion to $9.513 billion during that time frame. It also exceeded growth in statewide enrollment, which rose by 16.3 percent, from 809,496 to 941,411 over that period. It also exceeded the rate of increase of the consumer price index for all urban consumers in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA which rose by 83.7 percent over that time period. As legislators contemplate the financial needs of local school districts, they should keep in mind that they face an enormous parallel funding challenge over the next 17 years. Unlike in some other states, the Commonwealth--not municipalities--is responsible for the unfunded liability of two pension funds that serve municipal employees: the Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System (MTRS) and the Boston Teachers Retirement System BTRS). Massachusetts currently faces a combined $41.26 billion unfunded liability for the pension systems of state employees, Massachusetts teachers and Boston teachers. Of that, (figure 5) shows nearly two thirds, or 65.6 percent of the total obligation is attributable to unfunded local teacher pensions. Legislators would be wise to keep these pension and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) obligations in mind as they fashion updates to Chapter 70. As mentioned previously, the foundation funding formula has been revised and updated several times in recent years. Some additional tweaking is warranted, but the fact remains that wholesale changes are not in order. The communities left behind are the older industrialized cities and towns, such as listed in Figure 8, from Worcester and Orange to Springfield and Lawrence. Lawmakers should focus on the fiscal needs of these communities. They should also tie this additional investment to a policy strategy that is most likely to lead to better educational accountability and student outcomes in those key cities and towns. Whatever new funding comes from the state should be tied to reform. Over the last decade, Massachusetts has retreated from some of the key reforms that drove significant progress on student achievement for all students, e.g., adoption of weaker academic standards in English Language Arts (ELA), math, science, and history, the transition to the watered down (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments) MCAS 2.0, the loss of an independent district accountability agency, and the erosion of legislative support for proven school reform innovations, including charter schools. Over that time, the Commonwealth has experienced declining MCAS and SAT scores, and Massachusetts is among a minority of states in which National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores have fallen between 2011 and 2017. The opportunity for change that comes with significant new money should not be lost. To ensure that additional resources provide a return on taxpayer investment, Pioneer offers eight recommendations in this report.

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.]

UMass Boston has been a campus in turmoil for the past 20 months. Internal upheaval first became public in January 2017 when the UMass Board of Trustees (BoT) refused to extend Chancellor Keith Motley's contract. In March 2017 the trustees disclosed that the campus was facing a budget deficit of up to $30 million with just three months remaining in fiscal year 2017. In April of 2017, Chancellor Motley resigned, prompting students, alumni, and community leaders to rally on the State House steps demanding that officials reject his resignation. UMass Boston has struggled to right its financial and administrative ship amidst the continuing frustration of students and faculty. In May 2016, seven months before the financial crisis at UMass-Boston became public, Pioneer Institute published a three-part analysis entitled "UMass at a Crossroads." The report identified many of the systemic financial problems that ultimately led to the UMass-Boston budget crisis, including unsustainable cost growth resulting from student enrollment expansion, facility expansion, rapid growth in self-funded research and development, a rising UMass Central Office budget, and unfunded deferred maintenance at campus facilities. Pioneer's report cited data from internal UMass documents and financial disclosures to Wall Street bond rating agencies and federal student lending agencies. Following a detailed review of records obtained from the UMass Comptroller's office and other publicly available sources, Pioneer Institute concludes that the UMass President and Board of Trustees (BoT) unfairly scapegoated former Chancellor Keith Motley and UMass Boston administrators for creating UMass Boston's $30 million fiscal crisis in 2017-2018 when the president and BoT themselves bore primary responsibility for creating the crisis as a result of their having approved a massive, accelerated capital expansion plan without assuring that capital reserves would be available to pay for it. This white paper provides an introduction, detailed summary of findings from that review, and recommendations for the future. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 1: Is the UMass Enrollment Expansion Plan Sustainable? White Paper No. 145," see ED598651. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 2: Is UMass' Expansion Fiscally Sustainable? White Paper No. 146," see ED598659. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 3: UMass' Growing Dependency on Tuition and Fees and Strategic Recruitment of Out-Of-State Students. White Paper No. 147," see ED598661.]

In just the last 18 months, Massachusetts has seen the closure of small private liberal arts colleges Mount Ida and Newbury Colleges. The pressures on these types of institutions include technological disruption, changing student demands, and ever-escalating costs. To address this, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (BHE) and Department of Higher Education (DHE) have proposed creating a new state agency, called the Office of Student Protection (OSP), that would be granted unilateral authority to order colleges to notify students and other stakeholders by December 1st of any academic year where a meaningful risk exists that the college cannot complete the current school year and the next one. Under the proposal, OSP would be empowered to order a December 1st notification even if the college has a current satisfactory Financial Responsibility Composite Score from the U.S. Department of Education, qualifying its students to receive federal financial aid and loans, and even if the college is currently accredited by the U.S. DOE's approved regional accrediting agency, the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). On March 6, 2019, Governor Baker filed Senate Bill 2183, which proposes giving BHE authority to request information from private higher education institutions "to accurately and fairly determine the institution's financial condition and to monitor such condition over time" and "to impose sanctions on institutions that do not comply in a timely manner." The legislation also proposes giving BHE authority to compel higher education institutions "to prepare and submit to [BHE], for its approval, a contingency closure plan which shall include a process for providing enrolled and admitted students and staff with timely notification of the institution's financial condition" and "arrangements for enabling students to complete their programs of study" if BHE identifies the institution as having liabilities or risks that may result in imminent closure or jeopardize the institution's ability to fulfill its obligations to current and admitted students. Under the proposed legislation, such contingency closure plans would be subject to BHE approval. The proposed legislation would exempt information submitted by institutions of higher education at BHE's request from the Massachusetts public records law. The proposed legislation also directs BHE to establish regulations interpreting and applying this new section of law, following consultation with representatives of public and private colleges and universities. The stated goal of BHE's proposal is to protect students from sudden, unexpected closings such as what happened with Mount Ida College. According to BHE and DHE, their proposal would provide an earlier warning of potential college closures than has historically been provided by USDOE and NECHE. In this report, Pioneer Institute identifies 10 serious problems with the BHE/DHE proposal.

This paper analyzes the history, current practice, and dangers associated with Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). With roots in American progressive education and particularly in the movements for Outcome-Based Education and Self-Esteem, SEL is now pushed onto state and local education systems by the federal government and even international governmental entities. Other progressive-education forces, including the purveyors of widely used preschool standards, are equally enthusiastic. SEL is interwoven into education movements such as the Common Core State Standards and Competency-Based Education. SEL proponents present their product uncritically as the transformational tool that will propel students into greater academic achievement and personal fulfillment. But as this paper shows, and as admitted by numerous experts in SEL and related fields, the evidence for these claims is thin--and the risks to students' privacy, health, and even their very futures are significant. The paper analyzes the scientific research support for SEL claims and finds it much less persuasive than advertised. The paper further addresses the numerous problems in assessing SEL--problems that are acknowledged even by the experts and most dedicated proponents of the movement. It turns out there is no reliable, objective way to measure a student's personality, values, and mindsets. These experts cannot even agree on a uniform definition of SEL. The paper then explores the use of technology as a means of overcoming these problems. With the backing of the federal government, the education-technology industry is creating sophisticated software that supposedly can determine the most sensitive personality traits of students via their interaction with digital platforms. But this software--and especially software for video gaming--can go beyond assessing traits and in fact reshape the child to fit the desired mold. Finally, the paper discusses the fundamental philosophical and ethical objections to having the government, through the public schools, delve into this realm at all. [Foreword written by Kevin Ryan.]

Fintech describes new technology aimed at improving and automating the delivery of financial services. The term encompasses a wide variety of finance industry segments, such as crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, payments, data collection, cryptocurrency, credit scoring, cybersecurity for finance, thematic investing, algorithmic asset management, stock and bond investing, private securities transactions and more. New technologies compete with traditional finance models and change the internal processes of financial companies. Universities around the world are beginning to examine fintech preparedness and some are attempting to create coursework to fill the skills gap. Characteristically, the majority of university fintech programs in existence have focused on regulation, security considerations and understanding the impact of technology on the market. This high-level approach does not go into depth about individual technologies, leaving students to learn on the job or pursue additional elective coursework. This white paper recommends some ways public universities can prepare students in fintech. For example, public universities in Massachusetts can strive to offer coursework that gives a broad overview of fintech and regulation by examining in-demand skills as well as the pioneering efforts of early movers in academic fintech. For students, a key goal of fintech education is to develop the tools to think ahead of the curve. In addition, Massachusetts public universities can begin a process of examining their elective coursework across disciplines, identifying areas of opportunity for business students to gain further fintech-related skills. University administrators could consider expanding some elective course opportunities, setting up new tracks for business majors or developing certificate programs for business students to package their additional course experiences for potential employers. Also while business students may feel the impacts of fintech growth most directly in their chosen field, computer science students at Massachusetts public universities may find themselves working for companies providing fintech software or within existing financial services companies doing software design, development and configuration. Academic leaders can begin -- or expand -- a process of assessing current coursework and degree paths, potentially creating new prerequisites or entirely new avenues to degree completion for business and computer science students. By working to understand shifts in the market brought on by fintech and their implications for job skills demand, public universities can endeavor to better prepare undergraduate and graduate students for the future and strengthen one of the core industries of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts has one of the highest performing yet slowest growing charter school sectors in the nation. Since the Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) included enabling legislation for charter schools in 1993, the Commonwealth has capped the number of charters that can operate, both statewide and in individual districts. The legislature has modestly increased those caps three times, but since 2010, efforts to raise the caps further have failed in the legislature, the courts, and at the ballot box. Efforts to lift or abolish charter school caps have failed for many reasons, but one pervasive criticism stands out as a major culprit: those opposed to lifting charter school caps claim that charters harm districts by draining their operating funds. Few studies empirically support or refute this claim, and the Commonwealth's murky school funding formula complicates any attempt to do so. This brief evaluates Massachusetts' formula for funding public schools, including charter public schools. 25 years after the Massachusetts Education Reform Act, it is time to revisit and modernize the funding formula. To rectify inequities that impact both districts and charters, the authors make the following recommendations: (1) Weight tuition for students with special educational needs; (2) Adjust the state aid formula to ensure that districts with growing enrollment receive state aid to cover the "target share" of the cost for new students; (3) Provide equitable facilities funding for charters, including access to unused public-school buildings; (4) Provide charter school reimbursement to districts within the overall Chapter 70 allocation districts receive; and (5) Consider how reimbursements impact the ability of districts to right-size operations.

On average, only about 16 percent of annual union dues paid by members in 19 Massachusetts public school districts stayed with local union chapters. The remaining 84 percent of dues revenue went directly to the state (Massachusetts Teachers Association) and national (National Education Association) union affiliates. But what about public higher education in Massachusetts? For unions representing faculty at the Commonwealth's community colleges, state colleges and universities, and the University of Massachusetts system, the dues revenue structures are also hierarchical. Individual university unions remit a substantial portion of their dues revenue to state and national-level organizations. This brief report takes a closer look at teacher union dues and public higher education in Massachusetts.

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.

The COVID-19 crisis has all but upended higher education's business model, given the high susceptibility of college campuses to viral outbreaks. Since a vaccine will likely not be available until 2021, universities could be facing up to three consecutive semesters of remote learning and reduced revenue. Going forward, more students may choose to forego or delay their education if schools convert to online models to keep the virus at bay. The federal CARES Act provides some $12.5 billion in relief to colleges and universities, but advocates say it won't be enough, citing added financial aid burdens from families facing joblessness and difficulty recruiting international students subject to travel bans. Others have lamented the bailout of large, elite universities with exorbitant endowments while a small, private college in Wisconsin has already permanently closed due to COVID-19. The report includes a chart that shows the allocations from the federal government under the CARES Act for the largest colleges and universities in Massachusetts.

The Common Core curriculum standards represent the culmination of nearly three decades of federally driven centralization of curriculum--including content, pedagogy, and curriculum-based testing--in American K-12 education. Over the course of this period, decisions moved further away from schools and school systems upward toward higher levels of government. In this report, the authors describe the current clash in the education policy arena between the Scientific Management reform of Common Core curricular standards and the Liberation Management reform of parental school choice. The authors spend much of the first half of the report carefully documenting the development, rise, and recent stumble of curriculum standards-based reform, including of the specific type known as Common Core. Much of the second half of the report describes publicly funded private school choice as an alternative reform to Common Core. The cost of private schooling has remained a burden for many families, however, as a household that chooses to send their child to a private school still has to pay taxes in support of public schools their child is not attending as well as increasingly more expensive private school tuition. Public funding of private school choice represents an attempt to make private schooling options accessible to poor families as well as rich ones. The authors point out that educational freedom counts for something as well, and arguably should count for a lot when evaluating education reforms. When families are free to choose their child's school, public or private, the voluntary associations that result may promote civic comity. [Foreword by Patrick J. Wolf.]

The public education system in Massachusetts enjoys a reputation of being "first" in the nation. This ranking is owed, in full or in part, to the performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments. NAEP is also called "The Nation's Report Card," as it is designed to discern trends in state education policy. The assessment is reported out in two ways: a scaled score and performance levels. The scaled score allows for rankings, which policymakers and political figures use for a variety of purposes. However the authors reviewed the Massachusetts' scores in 4-grade and 8-grade math on the NAEP since 1992 and found some troubling trends. The first is that overall improvement has stalled in the last decade. Yet, despite this aggregate stagnation, the percentage of students scoring in the very top category on NAEP has steadily increased. In this policy brief, they argue the trends suggest the emergence of a two-tiered public education system in Massachusetts.

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.]

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.

In 2016 the state of Massachusetts began a process to end the confusing series of alterations to education by revising and aligning the state's academic standards and tests. In March 2017 the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approved revisions to the state English language arts (ELA) and math standards. The purpose of this report is to answer two questions: (1) Are the latest revisions substantial or superficial?; and (2) Do the revisions signal a return to the quality of the pre-Common Core standards, or continue the trajectory of Common Core? These questions are addressed by recognized subject-matter experts. Dr. Mark Bauerlein (English) and Dr. R. James Milgram (math), both of whom have extensive knowledge of Common Core and of the pre-Common Core Massachusetts standards. Their answers, while not surprising, will disappoint the commonwealth's parents and other citizens who had hoped for a return to the glory days of Massachusetts education.

A major factor in the overall enrollment decline in elementary and secondary Catholic schools during the past 50 years has been the migration of families from urban parish schools to suburban public education. Nearly 13,000 Catholic schools operated in the early 1960s. By 2016 that number was down to roughly 6,400. The enrollment decline coincided with rising expenses at Catholic schools. Schools in the Chicago-based Cristo Rey Network serve low-income families in urban areas, are doing what many thought impossible. Rather than losing students they are adding them. In its unique model, students receive a college-preparatory education and participate in a work-study program in which they learn employable skills and earn money to help pay for their tuition. Since the first Cristo Rey school was founded in Chicago in 1996, 31 others have opened in 21 states and the District of Columbia, including in Boston and Lawrence, MA, with plans to add eight more by 2020. This paper examines Cristo Rey schools, why they work, how they work and what parts of their education/business design can be successfully transferred to other Catholic high schools. It looks at the Cristo Rey Network, a cooperative organization formed to standardize the Cristo Rey approach, offer resources to the individual schools and help promote the spread of Cristo Rey schools to cities that can support them. Through interviews with founders and early backers this paper reviews the origins of the Cristo Rey method and how it has been replicated in places such as Cristo Rey Boston High School and Notre Dame Cristo Rey High School in Lawrence. And it looks to see see what lessons can be drawn by other Catholic high schools wrestling with sliding enrollment and shrinking income.