In the final analysis, are we ready?

By Liam Day
June 28th, 2008

At long last the Readiness Project’s report has been released. The subcommittees that constituted this effort met for months, the report’s release was pushed back twice and, once it was ready, it seemed like the administration was intent on milking news coverage for all it was worth by leaking the report in dribs and drabs. But it is now out and you can download it here.

General reaction has so far been mixed - simply because of the sheer number of recommendations outlined in the report. The most controversial seem to be the recommendations to regionalize smaller school districts to create economies of scale and to negotiate one, state-wide teachers’ contract rather than 391 separate district-level contracts. (Read the Worcester Telegram & Gazette’s reaction here.)

There has also been some grumbling on both sides of education’s political spectrum: on the left because the Governor remains committed to MCAS as a graduation requirement and on the right because the report includes nary a word about charter schools. In fact, as I discussed in a previous post, there were even rumours that the administration was considering a freeze on charters as a carrot to districts to opt into their readiness plan.

As I’ve read all of the reaction in the press and on blogs, I’ve formed a tentative conclusion - not as to the plan itself, however, but as to the pole positions held by the people doing the reacting. For it seems to me that how one reacts to the Readiness Project is based almost entirely on whether you take the Governor and his administration at their word.

For example, anonymous sources within the administration are quoted as saying that the readiness recommendations, specifically the readiness schools as outlined in the report, will be the Governor’s attempt to reform public education in Massachusetts with all of the major stakeholders at the table, but that, if the stakeholders are unwilling to play along and enact the necessary reforms from within, the Governor has no compunction against reforming the system from without, including expanding charter schools. From The Boston Globe:

The administration official said that the charter school debate has reached a stalemate in the Legislature, forcing Patrick to look for new options to provide communities with school choice and innovation. But if Readiness Schools don’t take off, Patrick may revive the charter debate, the official said.

If you trust the Governor, you are far more likely to view this as a pragmatic approach to reform, that the readiness schools, which, if enacted, will incorporate a number of the successful lessons gleaned from charter and pilot schools, represent the best compromise the Governor can reasonably expect to achieve in the current political climate and he should be congratulated for moving the debate as far as he could.

If you don’t trust the Governor, you are likely to view readiness schools as a Trojan horse built to destroy charter schools.

Likewise the state-wide teacher contract. If you trust the Governor, you might view this as a way to clear a path to reform, that instituting contract and salary reforms such as differential pay for hard-to-staff schools and subjects and even merit pay based on real student academic achievement will be far easier to achieve if it only need be negotiated once and not 391 times.

If you don’t trust the Governor, however, you might view the state-wide contract as his attempt to give away the store by offering inflated salaries and benefits. (Personally, I think the state-wide contract is a no go, simply because of the disparity in pay and benefits between districts such as Chelsea, where I used to teach, and Lexington. To bring teachers in the Chelseas of the world up to the same pay scale as in the Lexingtons of the world would be prohibitively expensive and I’m pretty sure teachers in Lexington aren’t going to accede to the salary and benefits outlined in Chelsea’s contract. Though, it should be pointed out that, if implemented, a state-wide contract would dramatically reduce the financial incentive for proven, mid-career teachers to leave tough, urban districts for leafier, suburban ones and that would definitely be a good thing.)

All of this is to say that the Governor’s readiness project may tell us less about the state of education in Massachusetts than it does about our own political prejudices.