Mass. Education Secretary Looking To The Future
BOSTON (CBS) - It's his job to shape education reform in Massachusetts from Pre-K straight through college. And the state's new Education Secretary gave his very first interview to WBZ.
Secretary Jim Peyser has been on the job for less than two months but he already has some ambitious goals. First some background on the new Secretary. Before joining the Baker administration Peyser served as the Managing Director at NewSchools Venture Fund, a non-profit organization supporting education entrepreneurs. He also served as the Chairman of the Board of Education from 1999-2006. He was one of the architects of the state MCAS exam and he helped launch some of the first charter schools in the state.
While he continues to support charter schools, they are not the only thing on his agenda, "The reason I'm so interested in charter schools is because it allows us to think about education in a different way."
Secretary Peyser will be looking at unique and different ways to make sure low-income and minority students don't fall behind. He says closing the achievement gap here in Massachusetts is a top priority. "We have done a lot of work, good work, over the years of moving everybody up. But, that gap hasn't really moved at all. We need to get much better at that."
And it's not just about high school graduates getting in to college. It's also about them being successful once they get there. "There are too many students who today graduate from a Massachusetts high school, go to a Massachusetts college... and have to go into remedial or developmental courses. And that's just wrong. We need to fix that."
That's where Secretary Peyser believes the need for student testing comes in. "Good instruction requires good data." The jury is still out on whether that data will come from the MCAS exam or be replaced with a new test called PARCC. "We're at a point we need to evaluate whether that's the path forward [PARCC] or whether we need to control our own destiny by relooking at MCAS, improving it, but taking our own course."
PARCC is the assessment for the federal government's new and controversial Common Core standards. Peyser says he's withholding judgment on Common Core, "This really comes down to PARCC vs. MCAS as an assessment in the extent to which it is telling us what we need to know about student and school performances." A decision on the future of PARCC is expected by next fall.
And when it comes to taking tests the Secretary even agreed to our pop quiz.
Paula Ebben: Length of the school year. Is 180 days enough?
Secretary Peyser: It's not enough. I think we should probably be more like a 200 day school year.
Paula Ebben: Length of the school day: shorter or longer?
Secretary Peyser: Longer.
Paula Ebben: Will you work to lift the charter school cap?
Secretary Peyser: Yes I will.
Paula Ebben: Are we over-testing kids?
Secretary Peyser: In some place yes and in some place no. We need to have statewide assessments. We need to do it as efficiently as we can so that it's not consuming more time than we need. But we need that data which is important for students and for schools.
