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By DOUG SELWYN

Ballot Question 2 passed with more than 59% of the vote, ending the MCAS as a graduation requirement in Massachusetts. Students will still take the MCAS, beginning in grade 3 up through high school, and they will still be required to pass their high...

By DOUG SELWYN

Anguished cries coming out of school administration offices and school committee meetings signal the annual return of budget season. School district decision makers across the state desperately try to create budgets that serve the needs of all of their children. The money coming from the state and the drained treasuries of their local towns is nowhere near enough to cover the actual cost of educating the children.

By DOUG SELWYN

Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka recently stated that she was hearing from senators around the state that schools within their districts were badly underfunded and so it was time to re-examine the state’s approach to funding, which is welcome news. I hope that President Spilka and her colleagues take the time to listen to and take seriously the stories that those actually working in the schools have to tell about the impact of underfunding on the children and education workers across the state. It is one thing to look at funding formulas, and quite another to realize that the numbers on the page carry a real impact on the lives of real children. That became very clear to me at a recent Zoom on educational funding.

By DOUG SELWYN

Most of the children in my fourth/fifth grade class came from homes in which they did not speak English and came from cultures foreign to the one in which they were now living.We had spent the year in our classroom focused on what we collectively...

By DOUG SELWYN

Bessel Van Der Kolk, author of the extraordinary book “The Body Keeps the Score,” shares research that shows that the more traumatic experiences (often labeled as Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs) a young person has, the more likely they will...

By DOUG SELWYN

Singer-songwriter John Prine painted a grim and honest picture of trauma associated with war in his song “Sam Stone.”Sam Stone came home / To his wife and family / After serving in the conflict overseas / And the time that he served / Had shattered...

By DOUG SELWYN

Please think of a person you would identify as your best teacher. It might be a teacher you had in a class at school or college, but it could also be someone you took a dance or drawing class with, a coach, an employer or fellow employee, a member of...

By DOUG SELWYN

Our public school system — the backbone of democracy, the great equalizer, the means by which we can level the playing field — is itself unequal, undemocratic, and badly underfunded. Though education is one of the most significant responsibilities of...

By DOUG SELWYN

This is part two of an interview with University of Massachusetts Amherst Professor Jack Schneider, who heads two organizations focused on helping educators develop assessment approaches that serve the goals and values of their classrooms, schools and...

By DOUG SELWYN

 Many people have an image of students taking the MCAS exams: They receive a booklet, fill in bubbles for an hour or so and then go about their day. Those of us who have worked in schools know the real truth. The actual amount of time spent on testing...

By DOUG SELWYN

One of the responsibilities and challenges of every society is to educate their young people so they are ready to assume their roles as adults in the community. There is not one way to do this, and societies make choices based on their values, their...

By DOUG SELWYN

A recent essay by Blythe Thomas, initiative director at 1000 Days, an organization that fights “to make health and well-being during the first 1,000 days (between pregnancy and a child’s 2nd birthday) a policy and funding priority,” begins by asking...

By DOUG SELWYN

We spent a week over the holidays with a two-year-old, a five-year-old and one of their parents, helping the family deal with the holiday gap in school/day care. Their parents both work at demanding jobs, struggled to find appropriate child care and...

By DOUG SELWYN

We are now a month away from MCAS season, and I urge readers to learn more about the Thrive Act, which would end the MCAS as a graduation requirement, would end district receivership, and would establish a commission to develop an assessment system...

By DOUG SELWYN

I began this series of columns by sharing three questions I would pose to each entering class of teacher candidates: Why do we have school, what should happen at school and who should decide those questions. When I reviewed reader responses to the...