The board of the Boston Public Schools selected Brenda Cassellius as its new superintendent. She is the former state superintendent in Minnesota, where she served from 2010 until last January. She is an educator, not a refugee from the corporate world, so that’s a good sign.
The board hopes she will repair relationships that frayed during the brief tenure of Tommy Chang. It is also hoping she will raise test scores, stop the decline of enrollment, and close achievement gaps.
That is a tall order for any superintendent, and Cassellius would be wise to set her sights on realistic and achievable goals. She will need to obtain new state resources to improve struggling schools, for example, by using research-based methods like reducing class sizes for the students who need e trap attention and support.
”Reformers” like to set public schools up to fail by setting unrealistic goals that they can’t reach in their charters except by kicking out kids they don’t want. The public schools must enroll everyone, including the kids pushed out by charters.
One troubling note. In interviews, Cassellius identified one of her “victories”:
She pointed out that while she served for eight years as education commissioner, she pulled together the state’s teachers union and the administrator and school board associations to craft a new teacher evaluation system. The process included trade-offs, including a major concession by teachers: the use of student test scores in their performance reviews, a practice that teachers nationwide tend to oppose.
Does she know that test-based evaluation has been discredited over the past five years? Does she know that the Gates-funded program to try this methodology in three urban districts and four charter chains was evaluated by AIR and RAND and found to have no effect, other than to discourage teachers from teaching high-needs students, who are likely to reduce their ranking? It did not raise test scores or graduation rates, did not close achievement gaps, and did not weed out “bad” teachers. Teachers oppose it because it is unfair and ineffective.
Cassellius does not arrive spouting Reformer ideology. That’s a good sign. Bostonians must work together to support their public schools and to restore confidence in them. If she can do that, she will succeed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The achievement gap will never close as long as the key metrics are scores on standardized tests. This perennial cry has been perfected as a way to avoid addressing resource gaps–opportunity to learn in a well-resourced school, home free of major turmoil, parents/caregivers able to earn a living wage, and a safe community with public amenities (parks, playgrounds, swimming pools). Add entrenched patterns of discrimination, redlining, and new versions of that. It is so much easier to blame schools and teachers and even our students if these problems are not addressed because, you know the fate of the nation and competitiveness in the global economy depends on “high quality” teachers, and meeting college and career ready standards and so on……. and on…..and on. Sorry for the cynicism today. I have been too long reading the grants offered by B&M Gates with these rationales, never looking at the exemplary resources available in the schools their own children attend, including small class sizes.
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Standardized tests produce gaps. There is no standardized test on which everyone is above the median.
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Exactly right! Unless you live in Lake Wobegon where all children are above average.
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BTW, The Globe has been Koch’ed:
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The screening process was secretive and deeply flawed. Three candidates were selected for presentation to the school community. None met all the requirements laid out for the position.
https://www.bosedequity.org/blog/boston-coalition-for-education-equity-weighs-in-on-bps-superintendent-search
One, Oscar Santos, was the hometown boy, with limited experience, having run a small town school system in a nearby suburb. Randolph has about 2600 students, to Boston’s 55,000. He was the protégé of Michael Contompasis, former Assistant Superintendent and Superintendent, as well as longtime Headmaster of Boston Latin School. Santos, president of a Catholic high school, was also a member of the Gates-inspired Boston Compact, featuring a unified enrollment system and cooperation among charter, Catholic and private schools – a favored initiative of the mayor. He received no votes.
The second, Marie Izquierdo from Miami-Dade, was a Broadie supernintendo and a Jeb! Chief for Change alumna. The school committee’s two Latina members voted for her, citing a need for an experienced bilingual leader in a city where 46% of the population is Latinx. In the few days after the announcement of finalists and before the vote by the mayorally-appointed school committee, the Boston Globe published two stories in her support. In the first: “Supporters say ‘next logical move’ for Marie Izquierdo is BPS” … Amanda Fernández, MA BESE member endorsed her. Fernández’, organization, Latinos for Education, is funded by the the Waltons.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/04/27/marie-izquierdo-rose-through-ranks-miami/VbyzWCSXFKwmpMuhiWdVGN/story.html
The second, by the senior editorial writer, published just before the vote, scolded Mayor Walsh for playing it safe and choosing Cassillius. That Izquierdo did not get the Boston position is also a rebuke to the state board’s other two Walton connected members, Margaret McKenna and Martin F. West and to Governor Charlie Baker as well. The Pioneer Institute, where Baker was Executive Director, and which is funded by the Walton and the Kochs, has so desperately wanted a Walton takeover of the state’s largest school system.
https://www2.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/05/01/playing-safe-with-new-bps-superintendent/Y5UT8pUd2JEFngiYkGg6PK/story.html
Brenda Cassillius quickly became the consensus candidate of the many parent and community activists. She spoke of being a Head Start student herself, of her failed attempt to slash required SPED paperwork in Minnesota, said she will begin her term with a listening tour of parents, teachers and community advocates. She’s not a big fan of standardized testing and called for the scrapping of Massachusetts’ required exit exam, the MCAS. That last has many folks’ panties in a bunch, as if the MCAS were a sacred right of passage.
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/education/with-cassellius-boston-taps-high-stakes-testing-opponent/
“’I believe in a standards-based education; I just don’t believe in test-based accountability. We have had test-based accountability since No Child Left Behind, and it has not worked,’” said former Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius, in the first of her four public interviews today. Standardized tests can help guide large-scale policy, she said, but ‘I don’t think that tests ought to be used for individual high-stakes decisions ever.’ ”
https://schoolyardnews.com/brenda-cassellius-of-minnesota-second-superintendent-finalist-would-limit-standardized-testing-f28f4de74130
Might there have been a better candidate for superintendent of Boston’s schools? We’ll never know (unless Bob Mueller is looking for a job). But for the first time in more than 15 years, I’m not worried that the person running our schools is incompetent, a privatizer or a saboteur. I don’t think parents and advocates will be strewing rose petals along Brenda Cassillius’ path to her new office, but this one is a win for now, and we’ll take it.
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thanks for the clear picture: the “how to pick a school leader” problem is so transparently rigged in many districts across the nation
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