Massachusetts

The National Center for Education Policy (NEPC), an OTL ally, has a new, must-read book about the change our nation needs to make from thinking about the achievement gap to trying to fix the opportunity gap that underlies it.

In the passion of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Jonathan Kozol gave up the prospect of an academic career, moved from Harvard Square to a poor black Boston neighborhood, and became a fourth grade teacher. Since then, he has devoted his life to advocating for equal educational opportunity.

In an article published in Phi Delta Kappan, Dan Chu from the Boston Student Advisory Council (BSAC) details BSAC's long and ultimately successful campaign to develop a tool for students to give constructive feedback to their teachers.

The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center's new Children's Budget is an expansive database of government services and programs for children and their families that impact their access to high quality educational opportunities. Covering everything from early childhood education, fair funding, expanded learning time, healthcare, affordable housing and juvenile justice, this database is a potent tool worth replicating in other states, and it drives home the need for supports-based, not standards-based, education reform.

A number of OTL allies in Massachusetts – including youth organizers from the Boston Student Advisory Council and the Boston Youth Organizing Project – are helping build grassroots pressure for revenue building initiatives and investments in communities and education. The move is particularly exciting following MA Governor Deval Patrick's recent call for a nearly $2 billion investment in the state's education system and transportation infrastructure.

Tax policy may not sound like the most interesting topic in the education reform world, but it is essential to ensuring our schools and teachers have the necessary resources to give every student a high-quality opportunity to learn. For a case in point, check out this recent op-ed in the Boston Globe from OTL ally Noah Berger, President of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.

On February 27th, the Opportunity to Learn Campaign will be hosting a webinar on racial justice with the Applied Research Center, an OTL ally. The webinar will provide advocates and organizers with valuable tools for framing and combating racial disparities in our nation's education system. Sign up here!

Education organizers and advocates from 18 cities across the country made a "Journey for Justice" to the nation's capitol this week to make their case in person against school closures. They testified at a hearing before the US Department of Education and even met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan! They protested that the DOE's policies that favor closing underperforming schools rather than investing in them is doing irreparable harm to students by disrupting their communities and discriminating against schools serving primarily Black and Latino students.