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With Beacon Hill poised to address the dual challenges of access and costs of early childhood education and care this session, advocates on Thursday launched a new website that aims to give lawmakers, parents and others a better view of the constellation of services and supports for children ages 5 and younger. The Rennie Center for Education & Research Policy and the Massachusetts Early Childhood Funder Collaborative unveiled Early Childhood 101, an interactive website that maps out all the various ways in which young kids and parents interact with programs and services like health care, housing support, employment assistance and more. 

In 2010, a young Mark Zuckerberg partnered with a rising political star, then-Mayor Cory Booker, to donate $100 million dollars to Newark Public Schools. The idea was that a massive infusion of wealth could fundamentally alter learning within the community. New money led to modest change but did little to address major challenges in schools. Roughly a decade later, even before the onset of the COVID pandemic, two-thirds of young students in Newark were unable to read at grade level and more than a quarter of all students were chronically absent from school. Massachusetts schools have now received an unprecedented influx of resources. Through federal Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding, the Commonwealth’s education system has received $2.9 billion, with the vast majority going directly to districts. Now it’s up to districts to invest wisely and avoid the fate of Newark...

Only about a third of the $2.9 billion in education funding authorized by the federal government since COVID-19 hit has been spent in Massachusetts, leaving "a lot of money on the table," according to a top state education official. During an EdImpact Research Consortium briefing Tuesday morning, Matt Deninger, chief strategy and resource officer at DESE, said EESSER  funding for Massachusetts was authorized in three tranches: about $200 million at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, $739 million in December 2020, and $1.66 billion more in April 2021.

The Boston area has a thriving innovation economy and is home to numerous companies in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. Yet, access to mutual learning opportunities with these booming industries remains limited for Boston’s educators and students. Today is the start of the annual Massachusetts STEM Week, a time to raise the visibility of these issues.

As students return to school for the first time in three years without most COVID precautions in place, the impact of the pandemic lingers on in our nation’s classrooms. Educators, who work tirelessly to ensure students are cared for and academically challenged, face ongoing, unprecedented challenges as they seek to accelerate learning.

The demands of teaching during a pandemic have undoubtedly taken a toll on educators. From dealing with ever-changing public health protocols and staff shortages to addressing lost learning time and supporting students’ wellbeing, teachers are overworked and overwhelmed. A new study found that turnover among Massachusetts teachers was at least 15 percent higher over the past two years than in 2019. And in a nationwide poll by the National Education Association, 55 percent of teachers said they would leave the profession earlier than planned because of the pandemic. Is the “Great Resignation” starting to impact Massachusetts schools? And if this trend continues, will we have enough new teachers to step in?

A school-focused ‘State of the State’ discussion played out in the Bay State on Wednesday. Massachusetts education leaders were in attendance as they looked at a newly released report on the current condition of education in the Commonwealth. State leaders met today morning to discuss the future of education in Massachusetts. During the virtual event, the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy in Boston released their ninth annual report on the condition of education in the Commonwealth…

If there were to be a multiple-choice test question about the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam, it might read something like this: Facing a drop in students’ scores on the MCAS exam, the state should: A) Rethink the structure of the MCAS B) Keep the MCAS as is but use the data to change the strategies in the classroom C) Eliminate the MCAS completely D) Make no changes to the MCAS or in the classroom. Unlike the real MCAS, this question has no objective right answer. But educators, parents and policy experts have advocated for those options — or combinations of them — in a renewed debate about the test spurred by this year’s lower scores.

A new study shows that just 39% of Massachusetts school districts are led by a woman. But the Bay State is doing better than the rest of America; only 27% of the nation’s school superintendents are women. That matches the percentage in the Attleboro area where three of the 11 school districts have female superintendents. Amy Berdos in Foxboro and Teresa Murphy are the only two women leading local kindergarten-Grade 12 school districts while Ingrid Allardi is head of Norfolk’s elementary-level schools.

Ever notice that school systems are typically led by male superintendents while the teaching staff predominantly consists of women? A new report confirms that disparity, finding that women represent 76 percent of teachers in Massachusetts’ largest public schools but only 39 percent of the superintendents.