District/School Administration Administration
The Massachusetts Board of Education

Trimester Report from the State Student Advisory Council

A defining moment in Massachusetts is most certainly the MERA reforms. We seem to love these four letter anagrams, because one of the direct outcomes of the MERA reforms was the MCAS. A common discussion that has been brought up so far this year in the State Student Advisory Council pertaining to schools has been the effects of MCAS on the students and a lack of other evaluation criterion. Many students believe that they may not be achieving as well as they are achieving on the MCAS as they can elsewhere. As we all know as members of the educational community, there are multiple forms of intelligence, and it is quite possible that the MCAS is missing some of these underlying intelligences. In a response to this phenomenon, the students and I have been working on a good deal of projects this year under a platform that I have nicknamed MLIFE. I apologize that MLIFE is five letters, but I think it works out pretty well nonetheless. MLIFE stands for Massachusetts students Living In Fundamental Education, which means we believe the system of education is essential, but it is necessary to make some changes.

MLIFE tries to tackle what may be missing in the average educational setting: personality. I believe the best example for this point is a scene in Pink Floyd's movie, the Wall. The song "Another Brick in the Wall" is playing (often known as "we don't need no education"), and we see the school system of England in the 50s. Things that we know and love such as poetry are discouraged at this school. It is the brick and mortar setting that we often fear and dislike to talk about. The students at this school line up and have masks on. They are often being lectured and the masks shield their personality. Just being "another brick in the wall" is a shout out to fight conformity and to encourage individuality. Although this metaphor is extreme, the general underlying point remains the same: although we have made great strides towards individuality, our schools still stifle creative thinking and work. We do in some way mask our students when we only assign them a student number for the MCAS, because we skip over the personal information that makes all of our students unique human beings.

In some instances, we are already at a point of greater understanding and development, for there are some schools that value new skills and personality. Some of the greatest schools for this are Vocational-Technical schools and specialty schools like Boston Arts Academy. These schools exhibit the 21st century skills we like to talk about, and they are full of personality.

I visited BAA shortly after our October meeting, and I was very impressed. BAA is a school that has a great curriculum and uses a student's strength in arts to promote higher levels of learning for all students. They have an excellent humanities program which compares history to the present which is what history really should be doing. Students during an end of the quarter test had to write essays comparing the Iraq war and Vietnam as well as events leading up to world war two and events leading up to the Iraq war. The Math and Spanish programs that I visited incorporated art projects into learning about common academic themes. The math students had to a geometry project using any flag in the world, and the Spanish students prepared great visual presentations for Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Additionally, every student at BAA uses some of their expanded time there to have a major. There are visual art, acting, dance, and music majors, all with great talent. The music majors were in a recording studio with the latest software recording their own music with skills at or above the college level. Even more astounding about the school, was its amazingly high graduation rates. Above 95% of the students at BAA, a school in the struggling district of Boston, graduate and go to college. Additionally, close to 100% of the students at BAA passed the MCAS. This school is amazing, but they will not be able to continue their great programming if we increase the number of MCAS tests. These students are succeeding at high rates with great knowledge in multiple fields. Let us not curtail these great learning experiences by having BAA have to reduce their curriculum to meet increasing measures of state accountability.

Secondly, the Vocational Technical Schools are already performing at high levels. Where else in the state can a student take math, history, and mechanical engineering? The Vocational Technical schools are already teaching a vast range of subject matter which prepares their students for high performance in both college and the work industries. Vocational Technical Schools boast higher graduation rates than the average school in the state, and it is evident that these schools will continue to succeed. We should encourage schools like this that train our students for today and tomorrow with the inspiration for individuality that are students need and crave.

What students need and crave is what brings me back to MLIFE and my trimester report. We started off our year with a broad range of goals which I presented to the board back in September. After a presentation of the goals to my peers in September, we formed work groups in order to achieve our vast range of initiatives. The work groups we have established are: Public Relations, School Climate, Student Rights, Higher Education, and Alternative Learning Strategies. I will explain each of these groups and their goals in brevity.

Public Relations is committed to several small projects that will be completed over the year. They will be making a power point presentation for student councils, and school committees. They will be working on the SSAC website for the advisory council, as well as trying to make internet updates for the council. Long term goals include making a student announcement for the public (on TV or radio, etc.) and getting the SSAC name out to the public by increasing the schools represented in the Student Advisory Council System.

The School Climate or school environment group focuses on issues that are causing our students to struggle in school. This group primarily focuses on drop-out rates, sex education, going green (recycling, etc.), new after school programs, and improved teacher qualification. They are all working on deciding what their final projects for the year will be.

The Student Rights Workgroup is working on disseminating student rights around the state. In the past year the Greater Boston Regional Student Advisory Council created student right note cards which the SSACs student rights group is going to try to spread around the state. They are also sending out quizzes and surveys to the schools to find out how much students know about their rights. Finally, this group wants to increase student awareness of help hotlines, and other resources to keep the students healthy.

The Higher Education workgroup is working on "Virtual High School" and AP course awareness. Students are often not informed of additional learning opportunities which would help them in college, so this group is going to promote these opportunities. The group is well aware that advertisement of these programs is limited, and they will work on increasing student participation in these programs.

The Alternative Learning Strategies workgroup is working on various projects to increase knowledge of the Readiness plan and its goals, new learning and teaching strategies, teacher qualifications and evaluations, and the pros and cons of extended learning time. Their goals include online teacher surveys with anonymous responses up to quarterly. They will also be working on evaluating current qualifications for teachers, and improvements that can be made.

Personally, and with the help of my Executive Committee, I have been working on expanding our State system to other states. We have decided that this would be a good goal for the year and it is important to have national connections if we are to reach our full potential. We understand this is a broad goal, so it will take a few years to achieve. We hope to send out letters to other State Boards of Education and encourage them to adapt SAC like systems in other states, and create a plan for our long term goals. Global and national competence has been a common goal for us in the State Student Advisory Council, and these projects will help increase our knowledge and understanding of the country and world, and encourage other states to follow the great example that is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

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