A Time for Action: Takeaways from the Condition of Education in Western Massachusetts

At the Rennie Center’s Condition of Education in Western Massachusetts event, held on Wednesday, November 4th, leaders from across the region gathered to reflect on the status of the local education system and discuss a path forward.

During the event, Rennie Center Executive Director Chad d’Entremont and Director of Policy Alexis Lian introduced our “Do Now-Do Soon” agenda, which highlights four areas in need of immediate action and investment (“Do Now”) as well as a longer-term goal focused on the transformation of learning environments statewide (“Do Soon”). These focus areas were mirrored in the remarks by Secretary of Education Stephen Zrike, who pointed to a well-aligned set of priorities. 

The sections below describes each component of the “Do Now-Do Soon” agenda in more detail, drawing on information shared during the Condition of Education in Western Massachusetts event to spotlight relevant data and innovative examples of practice.
 

Early Education and Care

Data from the Rennie Center’s Data Dashboard indicates that Western Massachusetts has a strong base of family child care providers, who provide 23% of all licensed child care seats in the region, but the lowest overall number of child care slots of any region in Massachusetts. In his remarks, Secretary Zrike described the need to expand the existing “constellation of providers” within every community in order to offer universal four-year-old education in the Commonwealth. He acknowledged the critical importance of high-quality early education and care in building a strong foundation for learning, particularly in early literacy and numeracy, which he referred to as the most important items on the list of education priorities.

Kimm Quinlan, Director of Early Childhood Initiatives at Holyoke Community College (HCC), joined the panel discussion to share more about HCC’s range of programming in this field. For instance, the college offers a low-cost certificate program—now available in both English and Spanish—for individuals working in the early education and care field, allowing them to maintain their day job while gaining a college credential. HCC also offers on-site coaching and support for individual programs and educators, and it operates a free child care program available to students at no charge. As of September, child care is now available until 9:30pm to support students’ participation in evening classes. By designing its programs to meet the needs of the community, HCC helps expand the pipeline of qualified early education and care staff and promotes access to quality learning experiences for young children.
 

Teaching and Learning

In 2026, 36% of Western Massachusetts third graders met or exceeded expectations on the ELA MCAS, somewhat below the statewide rate of 43%. However, this overall figure encompasses a range of results for individual towns and counties—for instance, Hampshire County (44%) exceeded the statewide average in third grade reading proficiency. Similarly, while the region as a whole has seen scores decline approximately 15 points since 2019 on grade 10 math proficiency, numerous bright spots remain. In Northampton, for example, 74% of students met or exceeded expectations in on the 10th grade math exam in 2026.

For Secretary Zrike, results like these highlight the need to focus on “quality and excellence for all.” Every student must have access to standards-based, cognitively demanding instruction on a daily basis in order to promote truly equitable learning. A key part of this, the Secretary emphasized, is hiring and retaining a diverse and talented workforce. He called for additional investments in “grow your own” programs that nurture local talent, especially in areas that may struggle to attract outside candidates. During the panel discussion, Michael Calvanese of the Springfield Innovation School Zone expanded on these ideas, describing how expanded teacher leadership opportunities within former turnaround schools have helped retain talented educators by creating a culture of respect and ownership. In his words, “making decisions with staff around what’s best for the school, then holding leaders accountable for that,” has been the best approach to supporting high-quality teaching and learning. 
 

Whole Child Development

Educational institutions—from early childhood programs to schools to colleges and universities—have an important role to play in supporting children’s wellbeing, including by offering resources that promote mental and physical health. As Secretary Zrike put it, a focus on whole child development should be a priority in pursuit of academic quality and excellence for all, removing barriers that prevent young people from accessing cognitively demanding, grade-level work. 

Of course, in order for children to receive these benefits, they must show up to learn in the first place—and in 2026, 18% of PreK-12 students in Western Massachusetts were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days of school throughout the year. This is down from a peak of 28% of students in 2022, but it is still higher than the pre-COVID rate. Digging into the data on specific groups also highlights opportunities for improvement—among students with IEPs, for instance, 24% were chronically absent in 2026.

The Communities that Care Coalition is one group working to improve youth health while also promoting stronger engagement among young people. As Coalition Coordinator Kat Allen explained during the panel discussion, they partner with nine districts to offer a student health survey, develop plans based on the needs identified in the survey, and offer evidence-based policies and practices to help schools implement those plans. They also work with youth leaders like Kalyn Berry, who spoke at the Condition of Education event about how this program gave more “purpose” to her learning. Kalyn also used her remarks to make a passionate plea for greater youth involvement in education: “You can talk about the work to help students, but the work you do and the policies you make will not be as effective if you don’t listen to the students you’re working for.” 
 

Postsecondary Pathways

Numerous speakers at the event highlighted the power of connecting schools with college and career as a way to both boost student engagement and build stronger pathways to the future. Data from the Rennie Center’s Data Dashboard demonstrate the particular importance of this strategy for Western Massachusetts. As of 2025, 40% of high school graduates from the region indicated they planned to attend a four-year college, a lower percentage than any other region in the state; on the other hand, the percentage of graduates who indicated they were headed to a two-year college (26%) or work (16%) were the highest of any region. Given how many students are interested in starting their careers, pathways that pair high school with industry credentials, early college, and work-based learning can serve as powerful motivators.

Secretary Zrike similarly called for an expansion of career-connected learning, noting that young people often feel most engaged when the subjects they learn in school are connected to their long-term plans. As he put it, it is no surprise young people come to school when they have CTE (career and technical education) programs, when they know they’ll be working on a real-world problem, or when they have field trips or site visits scheduled. Among other solutions, he called for the expansion of early college opportunities in rural communities, where access may be limited.

Lindy Marcel, the Early College Coordinator for Southern Berkshire Regional School District, has shown how much can be accomplished in this field, even in “the most sparsely populated school district in the state.” She described how there was real anti-college sentiment among families when the early college program started in 2022—“in rural communities, when kids go away to college, they don’t come back. So why encourage kids to go away and not return to the community?” Based on this feedback, Lindy and other district leaders integrated work-based learning opportunities  alongside early college, so all students district-wide now graduate with hands-on, technical experience as well as college credits. This has allowed community members to see the value in the program—and ensured that all students have the chance to achieve at a high level before earning their diplomas.
 

System-Wide Transformation

Along with the four priorities described above—which collectively make up the Rennie Center’s “Do Now” agenda—speakers at the Condition of Education in Western Massachusetts also agreed that it is important to take a deeper look at the education system within the Commonwealth to see how improvements in practice can be expanded and sustained. As Director of Policy Alexis Lian put it, “The structures that drove Massachusetts’ progress are no longer meeting the needs of today’s students and families.”

In his remarks, Secretary Zrike returned multiple times to a similar idea. After listing numerous reasons why this is a “crucial moment in public education”—including the realities of declining enrollment, fiscal challenge, and AI-driven tools that are reshaping learning and work—he expressed concern that the current system is unprepared to meet the moment. Rather than innovation, Massachusetts has been plagued by “stagnation…a strong inertia, feeling like there’s nothing wrong, and nothing to fix.” This widespread acceptance of the status quo stands in contrast to reality, as the state faces uneven and concerning outcomes across the board. 

In response to this challenge, Secretary Zrike called for a renewed commitment to “doing things that are completely unreasonable”—that is, trying out new strategies, expanding pilots and tests of new approaches, and cultivating investable ideas to see if they work. Short-term, this could take the form of technical and financial support for innovators, as well as messaging from state leaders to express support for doing things differently; long-term, he indicated interest in setting up a fund to incentivize districts and communities to help them implement, evaluate, and scale promising practices.

This vision aligns well with the approach that Rennie’s Executive Director Chad d’Entremont wrote about in an October op-ed in CommonWealth Beacon, in which he called for the creation of “a statewide education R&D infrastructure” that allows for “developing new approaches, testing them in real schools, learning what works and under what conditions, and continually refining and spreading what we learn.” Across the board, the examples of innovative practice highlighted during the Condition of Education in Western Massachusetts event—from early childhood programming at Holyoke Community College to college and career pathways in Southern Berkshire Regional School District—demonstrated the power of local leaders to take on big challenges and identify meaningful solutions.

In his concluding remarks at the Condition of Education event, Ed Lambert (Executive Director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education) doubled down on the idea of the need to transform the education system. Cautioning that “if we continue to plan and not act, we’ll lose a generation of students,” he closed the event by issuing a charge to the crowd: “Let’s do it now, let’s do it soon, and let’s do it together.”