A full plate for new education commissioner Pedro Martinez
Massachusetts needs him to push hard to close achievement gaps, maintain high standards
by Mary Tamer
PEDRO MARTINEZ, the new commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, comes to the Commonwealth with an impressive record of change in Chicago and an opportunity to tackle numerous stubborn issues that have plagued our public education system for decades.
Improving literacy, hiring and retaining high-quality, diverse teachers, integrating bilingual education programs, and better connecting students to higher education are among his stated goals. He’ll have numerous education advocacy organizations cheering him on, but he’ll need to stand up to politically powerful lobbies that will work against his agenda.
While Massachusetts remains first in the nation in public education, it is also ranked near the top in educational disparity, with diminished math and reading scores that are cause for alarm. Here are some ways Martinez can lead us down the path of improvement.
Addressing our literacy crisis
The state is currently ranked 27th nationally in reading recovery, according to the Education Recovery Scoreboard, with students almost half a grade level below 2019 figures on average. The situation is worse in Framingham, Revere, Lynn, and other Gateway Cities, where the typical student remains at least 1.5 grade levels below 2019 data. Only 20 percent of low-income Black and Latino children are performing at grade level, according to state data.
The solution to Massachusetts’s literacy crisis lies in evidence-based reading practices. Our state is only one of eight that does not mandate evidence-based reading curricula, and many of our school districts have fallen behind since implementing alternative methods that have proven ineffective. Meanwhile, we’re being outpaced by states that do use these evidence-based programs, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Legislation on Beacon Hill sits in committee to mandate that districts choose from a long list of evidence-based reading curricula approved by the state education department, which already offers free evidence-based high-quality instructional materials and grants for the adoption of others. Martinez can take the lead to advocate for the legislation and additional funding to support the transition, and motivate districts to adopt effective reading practices.
Numeracy skills can’t be left behind
Struggles with literacy and numeracy go hand in hand, and call for more access to engaging and relatable math programs to show students how relevant it is to their future careers. Yet, schools have deemphasized math instruction, and many no longer offer algebra in the 8th grade, leading students to be unprepared to tackle higher-level math courses in high school. Relatedly, too many of our state’s high schools do not offer the upper-level math classes required for entrance into the Commonwealth’s universities and colleges.
Six out of every 10 children in Massachusetts cannot read or do math at grade level. The situation is worse for students of color, with only 14 percent of Black students and 17 percent of Latino students reaching math proficiency. The Commonwealth ranks 19th in the nation in terms of recovery in math, according to the Education Recovery Scoreboard.
The state education commissioner needs to intervene, beginning in elementary school, and then push districts to strengthen both middle and high school math curricula. Our students deserve to have the math skills required to succeed in high school and beyond.
Maintaining meaningful graduation standards
Last month, the education department approved interim minimum coursework requirements that students must pass to graduate from high school. These interim standards replace passing the 10th grade MCAS, which voters chose to eliminate as a graduation requirement last fall, until Gov. Maura Healey’s K-12 Statewide Graduation Council recommends new statewide standards, which will then have to be adopted by districts.
The interim standards — which focus only on 9th and 10th grade to comply with ballot question language — set such a low bar that they can’t be taken seriously as a baseline for the permanent standards. They are far below those of nearly every other state in the country, below the existing graduation standards most districts require, and don’t even align with our state university admissions requirements. While literacy and math proficiency rates continue to decline, particularly for marginalized students, weakening graduation standards, rather than raising the bar, will only deepen existing inequities.
Martinez, in conjunction with Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler, should steer the governor’s graduation council to adopt the higher standards that our students deserve, with meaningful accountability provisions that ensure these standards are met.
Pedro Martinez
Building equity-driven state assessment & accountability
Eliminating the MCAS as a graduation requirement is part of the state’s largest teachers’ union campaign to weaken the state’s accountability system. Making the MCAS irrelevant eliminates an objective, data-based assessment of academic performance and removes an important safeguard.
Now, the Massachusetts Teachers Association is advocating for performance-based assessments (PBAs), which are individualized and thus highly subjective. Because these assessments are not uniform, but instead tailored to students’ interests, PBAs are susceptible to wide variations in grading based on individual teachers’ opinions. An assessment like this is particularly suspect at a time when grade inflation has been rampant.
A move toward PBAs would be a mistake without grounding the assessments in objective data. Students and parents already have many sources of local, individual performance assessments as part of their coursework and final exams. But without an MCAS graduation requirement, there is no longer an objective, statewide tool to give leaders a clear sightline into the disparities in students’ attainment of knowledge and skills across the Commonwealth’s schools and districts.
The greater cost of administering PBAs must also be considered, especially when at least two teachers need to grade each exam (MCAS, by comparison, costs $34 per student). PBAs would not only cost the state more in their creation and grading, but would do nothing to accurately measure students’ academic progress statewide or provide a common barometer to hold districts accountable for performance.
Increasing access to vocational programming
Vocational high schools have become increasingly popular choices for students, and with that comes a competitive admissions process that hasn’t always been equitable. In an effort to combat this, last month, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved a new lottery admissions process.
Making the admissions process more equitable is certainly important, but this doesn’t address the demand for vocational seats that far outpace the supply. Over 40 percent of the roughly 20,000 eighth-grade students who applied to a vocational high school in 2023 were turned down.
In an effort to make career pathways more accessible to students, the state needs to find ways to expand vocational opportunities. Some districts have begun exploring adding career pathway programs to their traditional high schools or creating nearby annexes that offer this coveted programming. Martinez should consider working with districts to encourage this, and the state should step in to fund it.
Continued Oversight of BPS
Boston Public Schools’ Student Improvement Plan, imposed as an alternative to state receivership in 2022, ended on June 30, despite the district continuing to grapple with issues it’s yet to resolve. As the new leader of the state education department, Martinez leverage his role to maintain pressure on BPS to improve the educational experiences for over 50,000 students the district serves, especially when only 17 percent of Black and Hispanic students in grades 3 through 8 are reading proficiently three years after the state stepped in.
What comes next?
There are far more challenges for Commissioner Martinez to tackle — including the need for greater accountability when it comes to education spending, whether it’s Fair Share or Student Opportunity Act dollars, both of which supplement the state’s Chapter 70 funding formula. When budgets go up but entrenched issues remain, including increasing gaps among our most marginalized students and their peers, it’s clear that Massachusetts has a long way to go in improving its public education system. The facts tell us that students are struggling, and it’s up to state and local leaders, including the new commissioner, to catapult us into the change our students so desperately need.
Mary Tamer is the executive director of MassPotential, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the success of all K-12 students across the Commonwealth.
Commonwealth News Service