Remember the urban children

AMID A DAUNTING list of challenges you face on the heels of your historic election, I hope, Governor-elect Patrick, you will focus on an issue with which you are intimately familiar: giving urban kids access to educational opportunity.

The outgoing governor, as he contemplates a presidential run, will tout the successes of education reform, which are significant. In 2005, Massachusetts became the first state ever to finish first in four categories on the nation's report card.

The debate over inner-city schools, however, has quieted in recent years. Some have grown weary of the effort and resources focused on this seemingly intractable issue. The state has little to show for having devoted more than half the additional $40 billion in local aid distributed since the enactment of education reform in 1993 to urban school districts. As a result, the business community has shifted its focus to improving math and science achievement, which is critical to maintaining economic competitiveness.

This fall, the number of Massachusetts schools on federal watch lists jumped to 617, up from 420 in 2005. Almost 40 percent of the state's schools are designated as "in need of improvement" under federal law, and the numbers are even higher in urban districts. More than half of the district schools in Boston are in need of improvement and the percentage grows to more than two-thirds in Worcester and Springfield.

Statewide, English and math MCAS scores have been flat or declining for two years in a row. In most of the Commonwealth's urban districts, nearly 65 percent of African- and Hispanic-American students score either "needs improvement" or "failing," the two lowest of the four categories on the MCAS test.

Like improving math and science achievement, turning around failing schools is also crucial to the state's economic competitiveness.

Even more important is the civil rights issue presented by more than 60,000 students trapped in low-performing schools.

A number of opponents of expanding school choice -- whether through charter public schools or other means -- played a prominent role in your campaign. Many of us are concerned about a return to the bad old days before the grand bargain that was at the heart of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act: significant funding increases in return for enhanced accountability and competition within the system.

We hope you will continue to develop students such as Ashlie Tyler, a senior at the Media and Technology Charter High who is headed to Duke University and excels in crew.

Or students such as Kerri Foley who, after graduating from Boston Collegiate Charter School, earned a scholarship at Bowdoin College , where she is majoring in American history with a minor in education.

Cities should not lose out on excellent schools such as the Media and Technology and Boston Collegiate charter schools, or the Lawrence Community Day Public Charter School, all of which outscore even elite suburban districts on MCAS.

Your own compelling personal story of moving from the South Side of Chicago to Milton Academy, Harvard College, and Harvard Law School before becoming the first African-American governor of Massachusetts is not unlike those of Ashlie or Kerri.

You should address school districts' concerns by tweaking the charter school funding formula, but also follow through on your campaign promise to lift the cap that currently places a 9 percent limit on the percentage of a district's budget that can go to charters. Districts such as Boston, Fall River, Springfield, and Holyoke, in which the need for meaningful educational choice is great, are at or near the cap.

Worthy programs, such as Metco , which give children access to educational opportunities not available in their own school district, are not at the scale they could or should be. Metco is currently in place in Boston and on a limited basis in Springfield. What about Lawrence, Fall River, and other troubled districts?

And while you're at it, please consider bringing choice to a scale that will permanently change the urban school landscape. In addition to opening new districts to Metco, expand pilot schools, which currently exist only in Boston and Fitchburg, across the state.

Massachusetts voters have given you a sizable mandate -- the kind that can be used to break longstanding deadlocks. Approximately 35,000 Massachusetts students, most of them poor and minority, sit on charter school, pilot school, and Metco waiting lists. I hope you will put your mandate to work to give them an opportunity to emulate your success story.

Jim Stergios is executive director of Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts public policy think tank.