s the Republican Party was anointing George W. Bush in Philadelphia, Massachusetts citizens got a surprising glimpse at what the party's education platform means at the local level.
Despite the platform's promise to return control to parents, teachers, and local school boards, Bush's standard-bearer in Massachusetts, Governor Cellucci, vetoed a small - $5 million for Boston - but extraordinarily flexible education budget line item, Chapter 636, just before flying to Philadelphia to join ranks with his party. Chapter 636 was designed to promote equity for those the platform talks about: children headed toward failure in school that will hold them back throughout their lives.
During his tenure, Superintendent Thomas Payzant has used most of Boston's Chapter 636 funds each year to give Boston's school leaders - both principals and teachers - flexibility and power to work with outside partners to educate the students the Republicans are worried about.
Because so much of any school's budget is tied up in personnel, most principals have few dollars they can target to meet their students' particular needs. Just as the Republicans advocate, Chapter 636 is a funding source that puts decisions about its use in a school's control.
Bush and his supporters would approve, we think, of Jamaica Plain's Agassiz School, which uses Chapter 636 dollars to fund a parent coordinator for its acclaimed literacy program. They would be impressed with Roxbury's Mason School, which contracts with artists to work with children, freeing teachers to review student work and performance data together. They would applaud Brighton High's collaboration with Boston College to provide a coach who helps teachers improve their written reports to show students how they can improve, not just point out the mistakes they make.
All these activities will disappear with the ending of Chapter 636 unless other funding is found that is similarly flexible.
Accountability is our watchword, the platform notes. Why, then, cut activities that supported the Agassiz moving its students out of Level I on the reading MCAS by 12 percentage points, Brighton High by 18 points, and the Mason by 24 points? Republicans argue that it's long past time to debate what works in education.
We agree. Boston knows what it is doing and has the most coherent and carefully implemented plan in the country for improvement in each school. Part of that planning is one-to-one accountability for how each dollar is used to improve instruction and student performance. Teachers and principals are working harder and better than ever before, and there are powerful signs of success. According to a recent study of 13 urban districts, Boston was one of only two that is closing the achievement gap between highest- and lowest-performing students in both reading and math.
Boston's rate of improvement on MCAS exceeded the state's rate both overall and in the majority of its schools. While Cellucci was helping the Republicans flaunt their rhetoric about no child being left behind, Boston budget officers were working late to explain to the Agassiz, the Mason, Brighton High, and other schools that the Republican promise for more local control means less money for the students who really need it.
Public education is reformable, researcher David Grissmer of the Rand Corporation recently noted. He found that education funding is most effective if targeted at the neediest students. That is exactly where Chapter 636 funds have gone in Boston: to improve the skills of the neediest students. Boston's good results will not be sustained and improved upon with unexplained and unexpected $5 million budget whacks by an indifferent Republican governor and a too-compliant House.
Ellen Guiney is executive director of the Boston Plan for Excellence.
