District/School Administration Administration
Board in Brief

Tuesday, December 12, 1995

This is Board in Brief, issued at the request of Commissioner Bob Antonucci, to bring you up to date on Board of Education developments of interest to the Department staff. The following is a report on the Board meeting held on Tuesday, December 12, 1995 at the Massachusetts Archives in Boston.

Report of the Commissioner

The Commissioner reported on several recent speaking engagements, including the "Team Harmony II" event at the Fleet Center sponsored by the World of Difference project of the Anti-Defamation League in which 8000 middle and high school students participated. He announced that Deputy Comr. David Driscoll has been elected to the Executive Board of the Council of Chief State School Officers Deputy Commissioners' group, whose 1997 annual conference Massachusetts will host. The Commissioner and the Board also honored Paul Gorden, who is retiring this month after many years of dedicated service to education, most recently as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.

The Commissioner and the Board then honored three Department employees who were selected this year to receive the Pride in Performance award for outstanding state service: Christine Lynch, Educational Specialist IV in School Finance; Barbara Solomon, Educational Specialist III in Instruction & Curriculum; and Richard DeFilippis, Institutional School Teacher at the Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton. The honorees each addressed the Board about their work. The Commissioner commented, "These members of our staff exemplify the best about public service in support of students and schools."

Board Chairman Martin Kaplan added, "The Board is proud of the dedicated Department staff who promote excellence in education for all students."

Christa McAuliffe Fellow

Jonathan Kearns Cooper-Wiele (5th from left, back row), who has been selected to receive the 1995-96 Christa McAuliffe Fellowship for Massachusetts, addressed the Board about his winning project. Mr. Cooper-Wiele, who teaches at the Timilty Middle School in Boston, has developed a multi-disciplinary curriculum on the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the African-American soldiers who fought valiantly for the Union Army in the Civil War. Several Board members commented that Mr. Cooper-Wiele's presentation illustrates how creative teaching and challenging curriculum can make history come alive for middle school students.

Report of the Chairman

Chairman Kaplan announced that Board members and the Commissioner attended a dinner honoring Jack Rennie, Chairman of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. At the dinner Chairman Kaplan praised Mr. Rennie for his "enthusiasm, ideas, perseverance, sense of judgment and balance" which were critical to achieving enactment of the Education Reform Act of 1993. He noted that Mr. Rennie and the MBAE continue to play a key role in state education policy, acting as the "semi-official assessment agency evaluating the implementation of reform, demonstrated by the MBAE's recent report, 'Within Our Reach.'" Chairman Kaplan concluded, "Jack's personal style and values are models not only for education leaders, but for all government and civic leaders."

Continuing Review of revised Draft Curriculum Frameworks

The Board continued its review of the curriculum frameworks, discussing at this meeting the revised drafts on Social Studies, Health, and World Languages. The Commissioner prefaced the discussion by noting that all of the frameworks are "works in progress," which will continue to be revised and improved as teachers and schools work with them to develop curriculum.

The Board spent considerable time discussing the Social Studies framework. The strong consensus was that the revised draft is an improvement, but still needs work. Dr. Jerome Grossman commented that this framework is key to preparing each student to "contribute actively to the civic and economic life of our diverse and changing democratic society," in the words of the Board's mission statement. He observed that the learning standards in Social Studies have to be made clear. Dr. Abigail Thernstrom presented a detailed critique of the framework, which she said over-emphasizes process skills and "modes of inquiry" at the expense of content. Noting that the recent National Assessment of Education Progress revealed that only 10% of high school seniors have a solid grasp of U.S. history, Dr. Thernstrom urged that the framework be revised to include specific standards of what students are expected to know about history. Dr. Madelaine Marquez added that it is essential for the frameworks to provide substance to advance the general goals of the Common Core of Learning [ HTML | PDF ]. Secretary Michael Sentance commented that this framework, as well as the others, should provide adequate notice of what will be measured in the assessment.

Paul Reville said that under Education Reform, for the first time the Board is defining what students need to know and be able to do, to assure accountability. The curriculum frameworks must set out measurable standards. Balancing process skills and content seems to be the challenge for the drafters of this framework, he said. Mr. Reville also recommended that the framework acknowledge the role of leaders in history, as well as groups. Pat Crutchfield commented that the framework seems to emphasize "perspective" over "fact;" while both are important, the balance should be restored. Chairman Kaplan agreed with other Board members that the framework should provide real guidance to teachers and parents on what content students should cover. He commented that the critics of the Social Studies framework have raised important questions, and the end product will be much stronger if it meets those criticisms.

Commissioner Antonucci summed up the discussion, which he termed very thoughtful and helpful to the Department. He said the staff will revisit the Social Studies framework to eliminate ambiguities, restore the balance between process and substance, define measurable learning standards, and add detail about important historical events and people.

The Board then discussed the revised frameworks on Health and World Languages. Commissioner Antonucci responded to a question about student assessment in Health, saying he would support assessment at the school or district level, especially to measure whether the use of tobacco tax money for health education is making a difference. However, he would not seek to include a health assessment in the individual "high stakes" student assessment. Secretary Sentance suggested that some sort of assessment of students' physical fitness might be in order, especially if the Board ever amends the physical education regulations so that physical education need not be provided for students participating in interscholastic athletics.

Board members were generally pleased with the revised frameworks on Health and World Languages. Marjorie Dolan commented that except for some minor editorial suggestions, she found the World Languages framework to be an exemplary document, adding substance to the Common Core of Learning statement that every student should be able to read, write and converse in at least one language as well as English. Board members agreed that these two frameworks, along with those on Mathematics, Science & Technology, and the Arts, are ready to be accepted, and that the frameworks in English/Language Arts and Social Studies should be reviewed and discussed again early in 1996, after further revision.

At the conclusion of the discussion, the Board unanimously voted to "accept and endorse" the revised curriculum frameworks in Mathematics, Science & Technology, the Arts, Health and World Languages; to request the Commissioner to inform the Board of any major modifications; and to extend its appreciation to the Commissioner, the Department staff, and the many individuals and groups who participated in developing the frameworks.

Discussion of the Board's Response to the MBAE Report

The Board reviewed and discussed a proposed response to the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education's progress report on Education Reform, "Within Our Reach." Several members commented that in the future the Board should, as the MBAE suggested, consider linking recertification of teachers and administrators to performance as well as to professional development. Mr. Reville encouraged the Board to engage more actively in school finance issues, as the MBAE suggests. Secretary Sentance recommended changing the proposed response on the issue of charter schools, to favor the controlled expansion of the number of charter schools, based on ongoing evaluation of their effectiveness. The Board agreed to send the response, as amended, to the MBAE, with copies to the Legislature and other interested groups.

Other Matters

The Board appointed members to fill vacancies on thirteen of its advisory councils, and also approved state and federal grants, including school building assistance payments, adult education/family literacy, Goals 2000/teacher and administrator preparation, and Perkins vocational education/community-based organizations. The Board also heard from two speakers from the Comprehensive Health Advisory Council, supporting the revised framework on Health and encouraging the Board to support assessment in that area.

Next Meeting

The next regular meeting of the Board will be held on Tuesday, January 23, 1996, at the Massachusetts Archives in Boston.