District/School Administration Administration
Education Reform

First Annual Implementation Report

Analysis Of Strategic Goal V:

Goal V: Improve the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's capacity and effectiveness in implementing Education Reform.

Introduction.

The last two years has been a particularly intensive period of change for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In addition to moving from Quincy to Malden and implementing a comprehensive reorganization, the Education Reform Act redefined the Department's basic mission. Under the leadership of the Board of Education, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is now responsible for the development and support of statewide standards for students, teachers, administrators, schools, and districts. This change in focus has necessitated several major changes within the Department.

Leadership on Education Reform.

During the first few months Department of Elementary and Secondary Education staff had to learn about Education Reform even as others looked to the Department to explain it. As soon as the Education Reform Act passed, Department staff began analyzing it to develop resource materials for school districts and other interested parties. An initial packet including a copy of the Act, index, and calendar of key dates was disseminated to every district and community along with an invitation to send a team to one of four summer conferences. Also during the summer Department staff dissected the Act to develop an implementation plan for all new state responsibilities.

The development of the Education Reform Implementation Plan exemplifies the Department's new approach. A bottom-up approach was used to develop the plan in which the lead teams identified for each new activity were given the major responsibility to develop a work plan for implementing the activity. Once approved, the results of these work plans were summarized, formatted, and distributed widely in an effort to broaden the participation of all key stakeholders in implementation and to make public benchmark for which schools, the Legislature, the Governor, and the public could hold the Department accountable.

Development of Statewide Standards.

The majority of the work to implement Education Reform must be done at the classroom and building level. The Department's primary role in this effort is to develop and propose to the Board of Education statewide standards. In developing these standards, the Department has made a conscious commitment to maximizing the involvement of all key stakeholders. As has been noted throughout this report, thousands of teachers, parents, community leaders, and students have already been involved in this process. Thousands more will be involved in future years. Broad-based involvement is important both because it will improve the quality of standards which are developed and because the act of participation itself is important to each participants support and appreciation of Education Reform.

Supporting People in Achieving the Standards.

In order to better support students, teachers, and administrators in achieving their individual standards, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has shifted its focus from that of a regulatory agency to that of a customer-driven service organization. All efforts are made to respond to both the long-term and immediate needs of the Department's "customers."

From responding to the exponential increase in phone requests with prompt professionalism, to thoughtful leadership in the development of resources and workshops on key implementation issues, Department staff have begun to model a service orientation.

Partnerships and Outreach.

Under the Commissioner's proclamation, "working together for better results," the Department has tried to build cooperative partnerships with other state agencies and stakeholders. The Department has worked particularly closely with higher education. In addition to tapping the considerable expertise that Massachusetts public and private institutions of higher education offer, the Department has begun to develop a new relationship with teacher training institutions to integrate the standards of Education Reform. The newly formed Committee on Education Policy, chaired by the Secretary and consisting of the Executive Boards of the Board of Education and Higher Education Coordinating Council, has met quarterly to look for opportunities where k-12 and higher education can further collaborate.

In July, the Board formalized its advisory structure by appointing fifteen new statewide advisory councils. These councils reflect the Commissioner's commitment to creating a fresh approach. In selecting membership for the councils, extensive outreach was undertaken that resulted in a pool of over 900 applications that reflected the diversity of perspectives and wealth of knowledge available in the Commonwealth.

Technology

To meet the objectives of Education Reform information technologies must be integrated into the education system. The Secretary of Education, in cooperation with the Secretary of Economic Affairs, oversaw a year-long study of educational technologies called Mass Ed Online. As a result of this plan, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has begun working with the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunication (MCET) to establish a statewide wide-area network (WAN) that will eventually link every school to each other, the state, and, through the Internet, to the world. As a first step, MCET will have in place an initial linkage for each school in the early Fall. The Governor's recently released Information Technology Bond and pending federal grants will allow this network to be "scaled-up" to allow full usage by all students and school personnel.

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