Time to take a new educational approach in Massachusetts
April 1, 2014PARCC a Topic for Dept. of Elementary & Secondary Education Board
April 28, 2014Originally published in the Boston Globe |
AFTER TWO decades of education reform efforts, it’s useful to have an outsider’s perspective — particularly when that outsider has had as wide-ranging a career as international education expert Sir Michael Barber.
The protean Brit has been a teacher. He’s worked for the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union in Europe. He has been a university professor. He directed former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair’s policy-implementation effort. As former head of McKinsey & Company’s global education practice and now as chief education strategist for Pearson, a large educational services company, he has consulted in dozens of countries.
His nutshell assessment of education in Massachusetts: Our system has made impressive progress in the last 20 years and is high-performing compared to other states and most countries — but that doesn’t mean Bay State schools are up to the challenges of the 21st century.