State education secretary Paul Reville, who is stepping down from his cabinet post in the Patrick administration, deftly managed to enlist the state’s largest teachers’ union in pursuit of aggressive education reform, with special attention on upgrading urban schools. Governor Patrick has chosen one of the beneficiaries of Reville’s work — outgoing Brockton school superintendent Matthew Malone — to fill the post. He should be a solid choice, as long as he keeps in mind what made Reville successful.
As an urban superintendent with prior teaching and headmaster experience, Malone should need no tutoring on public-school issues. Most of the education action during Patrick’s final two years in office will take place in urban districts, where the state must do more to close the achievement gap between low-income students and their suburban counterparts. Malone should bring special insights to this challenge.
Comments
How much do the Charter School folks pay you anyway? What a Flakpiece.
One of the jobs that the Education Secretary will have to oversee in terms of setting policy, is settling disputes over residency for parents who cheat on housing requirements for attendance. For example, sometimes parents who don't want to actually live in Boston, but desperately want their kids to attend one of the exam schools will find ways around the system by renting apartments and even setting up false addresses. This type of thing comes into play with high-cost special education placements as well. How can Matt Malone be objective on this front?
Seeing how he couldn't follow the rules himself and all that stuff.
I am skeptical that Matt Malone is the right choice for this job. His resume, as the globe points out, is not terribly well-rounded and he doesn't seem to invest in any one place for a long time. That being said, if he will get in the way of abusive charter school policies, then I am all for it. I'm ashamed that the Globe is so blatantly biased on charters. There are two sides to the story and the Globe has decided to ignore one of them. Let's see some real education reporting and commentary.
This editorial must be the payback Reville expected when he sought to have the Gloucester charter approved against the recommendation of the state's charter school office. In email discovered via FOIA, we see Reville writing to the Commissioner of education, "our reality is that we have to show some sympathy in this group of charters or we'll get permanently labeled as hostile and that will cripple up with a number of key, moderate allies like the Globe and the Boston Foundation." Reville succeeded in subverting the Commissioner's independence, and the Gloucester charter school was approved despite the very negative indicators. When the email came out, the Globe moved quickly to cover Reville, and defend him against calls for his resignation. Meanwhile, the Gloucester charter that resulted from Reville's dealings was just this week been scheduled for closure after its children were seen to be falling far behind their peers elsewhere in Gloucester and around the state. So much damage. And what does the Globe have to say about Reville's role? Not a word. The Globe's job is to promote charters, not monitor the damage that its project does to schools, children, or even government. So much for the "paper of record".