An article in today’s Boston Globe caught my attention.  While the best students in Massachusetts seem to do well when compared with other states, they fall behind when compared to other countries.

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/11/10/mass_losing_ground_in_advanced_math/?p1=Local_Links

And see this in The Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/your-child-left-behind/8310.  Thank you, Rick Hanushek and Paul Peterson for this necessary research.

Closing the gap?  Hopefully, articles like this one will spur us to act.  While wecontinue to focus on closing the  achieivement gaps between our struggling students and others in our schools, we are not focusing on the other vital gap–between our best students and the rest of the world. That focus is long overdue.  Hopefully, this article will  move the agenda to close this key gap.  Without closing this second gap, our nation cannot succeed in the new world.  Complacency in Massachusetts (the constant mantra….”We’re the best in the nation!”)  will not help. It’s time for it to go!

About Miriam

Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, JD, MA—an expert in public education, focused on special education law— is a lawyer, author, speaker, consultant, and reformer. For more than 35 years, Miriam worked with educators, parents, policy makers, and citizens to translate complex legalese into plain English and focus on good practices for children. Now, she focuses her passion on reforming special education, with her new book, Special Education 2.0—Breaking Taboos to Build a NEW Education Law. Presentations include those at the AASA Conference, Orange County (CA), Boston College (MA), CADRE (OR), and the Fordham Institute (DC). Her writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Education Week, Education Next, Hoover Digest, The University of Chicago Law Review on line, DianeRavitch.net, and The Atlantic Monthly on line.

No Comments

Be the first to start a conversation

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *