If Charles Duane Baker, Jr. is elected governor, there is no doubt the Pioneer Institute will be the architect of his education policy. Baker was a founding director of the Pioneer Institute, and Pioneer was a major player in K-12 education policy during the twelve years of Republican governors in Massachusetts. Several Republican appointees to the Massachusetts Board of Education had ties to Pioneer, including:
- Jim Peyser, executive director of the Pioneer Institute (1993-2000), chair of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1996-2003), managing director with NewSchools Venture Fund and former chairman of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. Here’s his biography, from NewSchools:
Jim Peyser is the Managing Director of NewSchools City Funds at NewSchools Venture Fund’s Boston office, where he leads NewSchools’ city-focused investments. From 1999 through 2006, Jim served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Prior to joining NewSchools, Jim was Education Advisor to two Massachusetts Governors, where he helped shape state policy regarding standards and assessments, school accountability, and charter schools. In 1995, he served as Under Secretary of Education and Special Assistant to the Governor for Charter Schools. He spent more than seven years as Executive Director of Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, where he helped to launch and support Massachusetts’ first charter schools. Prior to joining Pioneer Institute, Jim held various positions at Teradyne, Inc. in Boston, an electronic test equipment manufacturer.
In his role with NewSchools, Jim currently serves on the board of directors for Achievement First, Success Charter Network, and Uncommon Schools. He is also a member of the Board of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) and the Massachusetts Center for Charter Public School Excellence. Jim holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School (Tufts University) and a Bachelor of Arts from Colgate University.
- Abigail Thernstrom, Board of Academic Advisors of the Pioneer Institute (1995-2003), member of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1995-2006), and senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute (1993-2009).
- Roberta Schaefer, Founding Director of the Worcester Municipal Research Bureau and member of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1996-2007). In her role with the Worcester Municipal Research Bureau, Roberta Schaefer was under contract to the Pioneer Institute for reports. The Pioneer Institute described her as “Worcester’s Heroine of Education Reform.”
- Henry M. Thomas III, President and CEO of the Urban League of Springfield. Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the New Leadership Charter School Board of Trustees. current chair of the UMass Board of Trustees), member of the Massachusetts Board of Education (2001-2006), member of the Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform Advisory Board.
- Sandra Stotsky, Professor Emerita of the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform. Senior Associate Commissioner of the MA Department of Education (1999-2003), member of the Massachusetts Board of Education (2001-2010), Breitbart contributor, and member of the Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform Advisory Board.
- Charles Duane Baker, Jr., founding co-director of the Pioneer Institute, who left to join the Weld Administration in 1991, member of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1999-2003).
If Charles Duane Baker, Jr. invites his friends from the Pioneer Institute to take over the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the education bureaucracy in Malden, what can we expect? It’s all laid out on the Pioneer Institute website:
- Common Core: “Since 2009, Pioneer has led the campaign against Common Core national education standards and federal control of K-12 education policy, publishing a series of reports showing that the state’s adoption of national standards weakens the quality of academic content in Massachusetts’ classrooms, and raising serious questions about the legality and the costs of Common Core.”
- School Choice and Competition: “Pioneer believes parents and children deserve an alternative to failing district schools. School choice should include a menu of options, including: University partnerships, private management, Commonwealth and Horace Mann public charter schools, pilot schools, vocational-technical schools, scholarships to independent and parochial schools, and interdistrict choice (e.g., METCO).
- U.S. History Instruction: “Massachusetts is one of only nine states that do not require students to demonstrate knowledge of history or civics to graduate from high school. The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education postponed making US History an MCAS-tested graduation requirement, citing costs. Middle school social studies departments have been eliminated in recent years, and high schools are replacing history and social science electives with other subjects. The country faces a growing challenge of engaging future generations, including newcomers, in America’s social, economic and civic life. That’s why Pioneer has always championed high academic standards that emphasize content, including instruction in U.S. History and civics.”
- Virtual Learning: “Pioneer’s Center for School Reform has worked to raise public awareness of the potential that digital learning has to meet educational needs, and seeks to expand high-quality, accountable digital learning opportunities in Massachusetts. While Massachusetts’ 2010 education law allows for the expansion of virtual learning, the state’s education department has promulgated highly restrictive regulations. Across the country, 40 states other than Massachusetts have full- or part-time online digital learning programs. The Bay State lags behind many states in the number of students in digital schools, with only 500. We believe it is time for the Hub of world-class education and information technology to take the lead.”
- Academic Standards: “Pioneer Institute has been a staunch advocate for district and school accountability, high-quality academic content, and content-based student and teacher assessments that align with the state’s nation-leading academic standards.
Nationally, Pioneer has led the campaign against federal control of K-12 education policy through the Common Core initiative. Pioneer has published a series of research papers showing that the state’s adoption of national standards weakens the quality of academic content in Massachusetts’ classrooms, and raising serious questions about the legality and the costs of Common Core.”
bean says
To explain its likely impact on the Mass. public school system and who wins/loses…
bean says
damn you, autocorrect
Pablo says
… but some portions are absolutely toxic.
Pioneer is widely described as a libertarian think tank, so they are hostile to public governance and embrace privatization. the heart of their agenda lies in the “School Choice and Competition” portion of their agenda.
Pioneer supports an aggressive expansion of charter schools, for profit charters, vouchers, and tax credits against local property taxes for payments to private and parochial schools.
As a K-12 person, I think their strident opposition to Common Core is a little bit nutty. Common Core has its foundation in the Massachusetts frameworks, and is a logical next step to refresh standards in a 21st century environment. The major change is that it requires more of a demonstration of critical thinking skills.
It is controversial in places where it replaces significantly lower state standards, but there is no reason why it should be controversial in Massachusetts. I think the Pioneer people were so heavily invested in the Massachusetts standards that they are opposed to any change as something of a knee-jerk reaction. It really makes no sense, but abandoning Common Core and reverting to the old standards would be a chaotic step backward for our schools.
SomervilleTom says
I understand all about the claims of the “school choice” movement. I have five children, and all five graduated after a full preK-12 public school program. Three of those were in Massachusetts. One of my children graduated from Somerville High School, and two from a now-affluent North Shore town.
“School Choice” is venerable dog-whistle for “not-with-ni**ers”. Sorry to be so crude, but that’s where it started in the school desegregation era (it was a polite way that racists objected to school integration). It has about as much to with actual school choice as “States Rights” had to do with the actual cause of the Civil War.
The extreme right has cozied up to the racists, misogynists, and xenophobes among us for as long as the extreme right has existed. The Pioneer Insitute is no exception. They are very good at obscuring their real intent and strategy with polite and reasonable-sounding euphemisms that true believers immediately understand and that are not too offensive to the rest of us.
It sounds to me as though their opposition to Common Core is consistent with their desire to destroy the public school system in order to replace it with schools that do a much better job of keeping “the undesirable element” in “neighborhood schools” where they “belong”.
“Charter Schools” are just the latest laundering of the earlier “Private School Voucher” proposals. These originated in the deep South, where racists who opposed desegregation opened “Christian Schools” (proclaiming the fervor of their religious beliefs and claiming “Freedom of Religion” as their protection) that had lots of religion, Creationism, and that, without fail, did not admit black children.
This stuff is toxic to Massachusetts, and our media should be more aggressive at exposing the lies, intellectual history and context, and funding of organizations like this.
Mark L. Bail says
My town’s school system depends on it for its livelihood. We get a half-million from school choice. I wish we didn’t need it, but it’s the only way can afford our school system. Other kids choice out to other towns, and many attend charter schools. We have a private school in town and that has attracted a significant number of kids as well.
Kids come from cities and towns surrounding us. Some of those kids are definitely fleeing an urban school system. Others are sending their kids to a school system they themselves attended in a community where they can’t find a house they can afford.
Choice is more complicated than it seems. Some systems–like the one I teach at, which is adjacent to Springfield–don’t accept school choice kids. The more affluent suburb next to us does.
SomervilleTom says
I understand all the things you say, and I’m sure they’re correct.
Those things aren’t, however, what the Pioneer Institute is talking about. Those things are, instead, the way Pioneer Institute lobbying is made concrete in your immediate area.
The Pioneer institute uses “School Choice” as a dog whistle. That’s how they raise their money, that’s how they construct their narrative, and that’s how they define their audience. “School Choice” is the polite way for state officials to respond to voters in lily-white towns who don’t want their tax money “wasted” on “those people”.
If our state officials (of both parties) were more willing to confront our own state’s racism (disguised as simple greed), then those officials would be more courageous about insisting on level-funding for public schools across the state — taking tax revenue from more wealthy communities in order to increase school spending in less wealthy communities.
The sad reality is that:
– In Massachusetts today, being black or Hispanic is among the best indicators of being poor
– Education for children from poor neighborhoods is much more expensive than for children from wealthy neighborhoods
– Tax revenues from poor neighborhoods are much lower than from wealthy neighborhoods
Government policy cannot directly change either of the first two items. We can change the last — and we can do that only if we elect officials who insist on changing it.
Christopher says
As in, advocates of choice often claim to want to help inner-city, non-white students flee a broken system, and I think I’ve seen evidence that such families often are open to anything to get out of urban systems.
Mark L. Bail says
in the Common Core in the earlier grades. The pilot test my 11th grades was conceptually okay, though they were hardly prepared for it. I remember early iterations of MCAS the same way.
My sister teaches kindergarten and the material foisted on kids who have yet learned to read is ridiculous.
The Common Core was not democratically developed. The Governor’s Association actually copyrighted it. It’s time to take a step back and examine the entire thing.
Pablo says
There is a difference between Common Core and the way it is assessed.
The pilot test was for PARCC, which is a means for assessing Common Core standards. PARCC may have its difficulties, but PARCC should not be confused with the standards we need to assess.
jconway says
I hope mandating that History and Civics be taught and that some passing grade in them is required for graduation is not controversial here. To me, the lack of civics education is one of the biggest reasons voter turnout is so low and people are not engaged as much as they should be in their community.
A stand alone civics class that ensures every American knows how their government works (not just checks and balances, three branches, but also filibusters and court appointments, and the electoral college), who their representatives are at all levels of government, how their town government works, and how to vote in any election and how to register. Requiring students old enough to vote to register is another good idea.
SomervilleTom says
If I ran the schools, I would ZERO-budget the athletic program before I’d eliminate history and civics.
It is truly appalling.
Christopher says
Athletic programs can self-fund through fees and game tickets as far as I’m concerned.
Pablo says
I also support civics in the schools.
I would say there is much controversy among educators about the relationship between teaching social studies versus history, and I don’t have a dog in that fight.
My purpose for writing this post was to give a road map to what would likely happen if Baker gained the appointment authority for the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. I didn’t want to cherry pick the contents, so I put the entire Pioneer agenda out there as they describe their efforts. I think some items have merit, others are quite toxic to public schools.
Mark L. Bail says
with MCAS, but we always taught to the test, not that standards. The standards are something we mostly applied to the existing curriculum, though we did add coverage to anything that was testable. I’m speaking for high school English. It might be different for other subjects.
Patrick says
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/04/baker-camp-seeks-transition-meeting-with-patrick/lsop2tkzi1KnpU73WiJG9N/story.html