Tom Birmingham was president of the State Senate in 1993 when the state passed its landmark education reforms. From those reforms came a historic new investment in public education and new standards and assessments. Today, Massachusetts leads the nation on NAEP at both grades four and eight in reading and math.
However, the state abandoned its successful standards and assessments to qualify for Race to the Top funding. In doing so, it adopted Common Core.
Birmingham worries about whether the state gave up its successful program for a one-size-fits-all approach in which the children of Massachusetts will meet the same standards as children in Mississippi and Alabama.
He writes, ” In implementing the Common Core, there will be natural pressure to set the national standards at levels that are realistically achievable by students in all states. This marks a retreat from Massachusetts’ current high standards. This may be the rare instance where what is good for the nation as a whole is bad for Massachusetts.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Interestingly, Massachusetts led the nation on NEAP in reading and math before 1993, begging the question as to how affective has been the reform movement even in Massachusetts. Even more interestingly is the fact that while Massachusetts continues to lead the nation in NEAP scores it has also widened the gap between whites and non whites, rich and poor, begging another question on just how well the reform movement has really worked. Affluent districts are doing well, but then they were doing well before the reform. Poor districts are doing worse. The answer to bridge the gap? Let’s try a new set of standards and tie them to a new age test. When do we get a chance to assess the reformers?
Stop the Common Core
Look what has happened to the Regents exams in New York and especially NYC. This is a travesty, but just wait for the common core ests:
http://gothamschools.org/2013/06/19/regents-scoring-issues-continue-to-pile-up-as-graduations-near/#more-107862
We need the mainstream media to report on this. it has implications for educators everywhere.
So standards and assessments helped improve public education in Massachusetts?
No!
What is being orchestrated is a top-down, totalitarian regime for K-12 education of the masses in the United States. We can have liberty, or we can have this Orwellian nightmare of mandated standards, mandated tests, mandated evaluation schemes, and narrowed curricula developed by a few connected vendors tapped into the national database of student scores. When they say, “One ring to rule them all,” we must draw the line. We must pledge ourselves to oppose this one every front and return to democratic, site-based decision making for our schools.
Am i correct in thinking that your ideal system would allow schools to differentiate themselves from each other at the building level and students to choose the school that best fits their individual needs?
Indeed you are
Robert D. Shepherd: yes, for the edubullies’ OWN CHILDREN nothing but the most enriched “old-fashioned” best-practices schooling, but for the “masses”—i.e., for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN—cagebusting innovative twenty first Compliance Academies of Finger-Wagging Eduexcellence.
Any doubt who are being groomed to be the leaders and who are being trained to be the followers?
😦
I fail to understand the reliance on NAEP and other standardized test scores to play the “let’s see what the best states are doing in education” game. We play the same stupid game in comparing districts within states without any attention to factors that affect those test score that have nothing to do with the quality of within school factors. What we do know is that money matters. It matters to families and it matters to schools. Unfortunately, it’s also at the root of the privateers objectives and the continued reliance on test scores as the sole indicator of quality is a game they continue to exploit. Are we continuing to play a game that relies on limited information and may mislead as mich as it enlightens?