Massachusetts: State, Districts Look to MTA as School Improvement Provider
Posted in Local Leaders, Policy Experts on December 6th, 2010 by Steve Snider – Be the first to commentBy Kathleen J. Skinner, Ed.D.
I know many of us quote that revered philosopher Pogo. ‘I have seen the enemy and he is us.’ I would rather say, ‘We have seen the solution and it is us.’ I think that’s sort of a refrain that we walk into this work with. Eight or nine years ago Massachusetts became involved with the Priority School Initiative. And we used the initial opportunity to work with middle schools over a three year period in what we called the PSI KEYS Initiative, because we used as sort of a baseline to help identify the one or two big problems that – if they weren’t solved – made what else they did irrelevant. And we had a lot of success with some schools and we learned a lot from our mistakes with others. And I always think, quite frankly, failure is a better teacher than success.
The Center for Education Policy and Practice has four professional staff, support staff and a field of 12 professional development associates who work across the state on professional programs. Based on that experience and with a lot of encouragement, we made a decision to found an education management organization, The Priority School Redesign Center. read more »