TODAY BLE IS

BLE today has been laser focused on working with legislative, government, and education leaders to craft the Student Opportunity Act, which was passed into law in the last legislative session. Interest now shifts to its implementation, by working with those same leaders to guarantee equitable and thoughtful distribution of monies allocated to improve Boston and Massachusetts student outcomes.

BLE continues to support the goals of previous and ongoing efforts for better education outcomes. These include:

Policy

BLE worked with Race to the Top Coalition to help

  • Design and pass the 2010 An Act Relative to the Achievement Gap that lifted the public charter school cap, created new in-distrit public charter schools and innovation schools, and important reforms of failing schools

  • Redesign Race to the Top federal proposal resulting in $250 million grant to further school reform

The Race to the Top Coalition was a highly diverse group of business, community, civic and education leaders dedicated to closing the achievement gap in Massachusetts and improving outcomes for every student in the Commonwealth. Convened by the Boston Foundation in 2009, the Coalition played a major role in passing An Act Relevant to the Achievement Gap, signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick in 2010. The legislation doubled the number of charter school seats in the state, established innovative indistrict schools and provided superintendents with new intervention powers in underperforming districts. The Coalition then focused on passing legislation, which would lift the cap on public charter schools in the lowest performing districts from 18% to 23% by 2022; empower superintendents and school personnel to make critical changes in many other underperforming schools; and promote other crucial innovations that will help to close the achievement gap in Massachusetts.

Teachers

BLE worked with the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to design implementation plans for better teacher evaluation and curriculum design.

capacity building

BLE engaged actively in several grass roots coalitions who were interested in a better Boston teacher contract, including:

  • effective evaluation, flexibility in teacher placement, extended learning time for all students;

  • more freedom for successful schools to explore school choice.

Education Pre K - 12

BLE members initiated and supported innovative initiatives in several schools to:

  • improve individual district schools; encourage strong independent public charter schools working to enact legislation that increased accountability and funding with accountability; and push successful district- wide programs;

  • encourage the district to move more quickly on reform agendas such as evaluation and outplacement of poor teachers; adopt in-district public charter schools; close surplus schools; revise student placement to reduce transportation costs.