Education is Patrick's test
Thomas Birmingham's phone has been ringing a lot this week, in the wake of Governor Deval Patrick's plan to overhaul public education.
The former state Senate president was one of the last people to take on the task of reforming education in Massachusetts, in 1993. It was a valiant effort, but ultimately not enough.
"I don't think anybody thought in '93 that a bright day had dawned and that we would move on because all our education problems had been solved," Birmingham said yesterday.
The overriding issue then was the wild disparity between different communities in spending on education. But that emphasis proved simplistic.
The achievement gap was not nearly as well understood as it is now. "I think perhaps the disadvantages that poverty imposes were beyond what we might have accomplished, that it is a harder problem than we realized," he said. "We smuggle a host of issues into schools that are not educational."
Patrick's Readiness Program calls for dozens of changes to the way children are educated, from expanded early childhood education to free community colleges. The plan is still being digested, though critics have quickly focused on the lack, at this point, of an explanation for how this will be paid for. Funding will be but one of the challenges of overhauling a policy area with countless powerful and entrenched interests.
"I'm glad to see education return to a position of importance," Birmingham said. "I think it has received far too little attention in the past five years or so."
The jewel of 1990s education reform was the MCAS. It was proof that schools were now going to be awash in accountability. Even most critics would now concede that it has acted to raise academic standards and performance. The politicians declared victory and moved on.
Paul Reville, the incoming education secretary, views the new plan as growing directly out of Patrick's background as a child whose life was reshaped by educational opportunity.
"In the governor, we have someone who has seen that, feels that, and wants to make that experience universal rather than exceptional," Reville said.
I wish there were more of a role in Patrick's proposal for charter schools, which have provided educational choices to families that otherwise wouldn't have any. But, as Reville said yesterday, the fight between school districts, charter school advocates, and taxpayers has become exhausting. The charter school debate is all about turf and money, with education barely even an afterthought.
"We want to change the conversation," Reville told me. He said the administration wants to challenge school districts to embrace change. "Many critics believe the only way to reform education is from the outside in," Reville said. Change "has to be embraced in this new future, or maybe the critics are right."
The knock on Patrick has been obvious for some time. He has to prove that he can take sweeping ideas and translate them into meaningful public policy. To give him his due, he has stubbornly resisted advice to think smaller, to become a more conventional Beacon Hill politician. His $1 billion biotechnology initiative quieted some of his critics, but he is still trying to prove to the public that he is more than a gifted orator.
Governors are often reluctant to meddle too deeply in education. It's often a political loser, too complicated, too many constituencies, and too hard to measure success. If and when Patrick runs for reelection two years from now, we probably won't have a clear idea whether his education proposals have succeeded. That is anathema to politicians. What good is a politically messy idea that doesn't help you get reelected?
But if Patrick is successful in taking a sledgehammer to Massachusetts schools, he has a chance to deliver the kind of far-reaching change he promised. If he fails, it was just words. Morally and politically, this is the right issue to take on. But Patrick will get just so many points for effort. This is a far greater gamble than his bid to build a few casinos.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 