Borsuk: Massachusetts and Wisconsin charted separate paths in the 1990s, and you can see the results today

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Massachusetts. That’s the first answer I give when asked to name a state that’s done better than Wisconsin on education policy and progress in the last couple of decades.

A Milwaukee classroom

In the early 1990s, Massachusetts and Wisconsin were getting about the same overall results on measures such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the closest thing there is to a nationwide test of student achievement.

In that period, Wisconsin acted to hold down increases in spending and property taxes for schools. Massachusetts acted to improve outcomes for students and increase spending, especially in places where overall success was weak.

Alan J. Borsuk

Both states were successful in their own ways.

Elements of the lid placed on spending in 1993 in Wisconsin survive to this day and statewide spending per student, by some measures, has fallen below the national average for the first time in decades. Student achievement in Wisconsin, however, has stayed pretty close to flat.

Massachusetts has seen substantial improvement in outcomes. From a position down the rankings of NAEP tests in the early 1990s, the state moved into first place among all states in reading and math for fourth- and eighth-graders by the early 2000s. It has stayed there since.

The Massachusetts improvements were not all about money. I would emphasize the other parts of what was done. In 1993, a bipartisan “grand bargain” was struck by the governor, legislators, educators, business leaders and others. More spending was paired with setting high goals for improving outcomes.

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The strategies included recruiting and keeping quality teachers, setting high but realistic standards for what students should learn, better curriculum, and a statewide test to show how students were doing. To get a high school diploma, students would need to demonstrate reading and math skills at the 10th-grade level, either by passing the state test or through alternative means. New teachers had to demonstrate on a test that they had basic skills needed for teaching.

One of the main players in the sometimes-tumultuous pursuit of those goals was David Driscoll. He started as a teacher, became a school administrator, and ended up as Massachusetts’ education commissioner from 1998 to 2007. He later chaired the National Assessment Governing Board, which runs the NAEP program.

Driscoll, now 75, wrote a book about what he learned, “Commitment and Common Sense: Leading Education Reform in Massachusetts,” published recently by Harvard Education Press. I met with him when I was in Boston a few days ago. 

What is the condition of the grand bargain now? It’s still standing, he said, but there’s been some slippage. School spending has tightened, bringing cuts in programs and staff. Public money to promote bringing talented people into teaching dried up. Energetic critics of some of the reforms remain and political polarization has increased. There is, as Driscoll put it, “some weariness” with the whole subject.   

Massachusetts did not become education heaven. One important sign of that: Success among all groups of students increased, but large gaps remain between white and black students.

Changes paid off

Overall, though, Driscoll said, the changes have paid off. After going through a lot of controversy at the start, students are graduating at higher rates, and high percentages of new teachers meet the qualifications to get licenses.

“We’ll stay among the best states in the U.S. (in NAEP scores), but we might lose the number-one status,” Driscoll said.

What lies behind the long-term improvement? “Setting high standards. Sticking with them. That’s a big deal,” Driscoll said. “You know, today people are waffling all over the place.”

In a program a few days ago at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, the current Massachusetts secretary of education, Jim Peyser, said there had been a leveling off of the trends.  Improving teaching and finding better ways to engage students are keys to better results ahead, he said, and those are hard to attain.   

Driscoll told me he was concerned that schools aren’t changing enough. “There’s not systemic change and dramatic change needed to engage kids. It’s the same old same old,” he said. Too many students are bored and don’t see enough connection between school and their future.

What could Milwaukee and Wisconsin do? Driscoll is reluctant to give advice to other states. But Wisconsin took years longer than Massachusetts to set higher standards for learning and student performance. I’d add that the strong leadership and multiparty sense of everyone working together to improve outcomes that were shown in Massachusetts have generally eluded us.

I told Driscoll that only about 20% of Milwaukee students are rated proficient or better in reading. The causes go well beyond what happens in school, he said, but he added, “There are districts and schools that mirror the demographics of the Milwaukee schools that are making progress. … Twenty percent is terrible. You’ve got to get some progress there.”

Driscoll ends his book with a hopeful vision for American education five years from now. Included are broad agreement on smart ways to use standards and testing; instruction more tied to real life; good use of technology to help learning; less divisive politics; better teacher training programs; success in increasing the quality of school principals; better ways to evaluate teachers; broad public support for teachers and principals; and improved ways to help high-needs students, both in school and beyond.

Driscoll always has aimed to get as many people as possible united in helping kids and their education. “I’m an optimist, always been an optimist, and will continue to be an optimist,” Driscoll said.

It’s impressive to still be an optimist after spending decades immersed in education and its politics. Maybe Driscoll’s long-term combination of hope and steady, all-aboard commitment to improvement is itself a lesson Wisconsinites should learn from.

Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@marquette.edu.