School Committee: Election 2003

1. How will the consolidation process of last year play into this election, if at all? What did the consolidation process teach you about civic participation in Cambridge?

Incumbents: What do you think of what you did on the Committee during the consolidation process?

Challengers: What would you have done had you been on the Committee during the consolidation process?

2. What can be done to improve achievement at the high school?

3. Would you change the way the schools budget is spent? If so, how?

4. What should be the role of standardized testing in Cambridge?

5. Should the school system standardize its curriculum? How can elementary schools retain their individual character?

6. How can the school department better tap the resources of area colleges and universities?

Christopher Craig

1. The decision to close three of the Elementary Schools in Cambridge was a response to declining enrollment and budget shortages...Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about the consolidation process is the way in which the School Committee handled the decision.

2. If our goal is to keep students from falling through the cracks, we need to pay attention to them and not to the school structure. Cambridge is committed to small class sizes, and this is the important point. Our teachers can do the job if we give them the time and resources they need.

3. We spend an enormous amount of money on our school system—approximately $18,000 per student this year...[W]e must have the will to evaluate many employees in terms of their direct contribution to the essential work in the classrooms and make some tough decisions.

4. The MCAS tests are designed to measure students’ progress in mastering the material outlined in the State Education Frameworks. The tests are not perfect, nor are they fatally flawed. The main problem has been the way that the test results have been used.

5. Cambridge needs to adopt a set of Educational Frameworks to establish what is to be learned by our students. I support the State Frameworks in the absence of anything better. The choice of what curriculum should be used to achieve these goals should be left up to the teachers.

6. This is one of the areas where I feel the School Committee is most deficient.  I have even heard incumbent candidates say that “We don’t need Harvard’s help.”  I am in favor of doing as much as possible to establish a strong and productive relationship between our schools and these institutions of higher learning in Cambridge.

Fred Fantini

1. Because of declining enrollments (costs too much to live in Cambridge) and increasing costs we had to consolidated some schools to achieve fiscal and, in the long run, educational stability. Had we not made the consolidation decision we would be currently facing significant budgetary problems for the next several years.

2. Having a capable principal and a strong leadership team is important...We are in the process of completing a survey about school climate which will provide us with important information to act on.

3. The superintendent is reviewing our administrative structure and if in his view we are heavy in certain places than he will recommend reductions (as he should).

4. Standardized testing is a way of life in public education. Federal legislation and state mandates require standardized testing. In my opinion, teachers can still be creative in how they implement our curriculum.

5. Outcomes should be consistent so that kids can transfer from one school to another and still be in the same place no matter what school they go to. Teachers can be creative as long as outcomes are achieved.

6. Universities have done and continue to do a lot. My hope is that universities would take a bold stand and pick one area (like reading) and make a public commitment to work with our schools to say achieve a goal that every child by the third grade will read at grade level.

Joseph Grassi

1. The School Committee by a 5-2 majority approved a consolidation plan that was needed to provide a stable grade structure and reduce over-staffing of our elementary schools. I am very proud of the stand I took to consolidate our public schools.

2. The only way to improve achievement at the high school is to improve achievement K–12...Common learning expectations and benchmarks need to be established at every grade. The curriculum needs to be consistent across the city.

3. A complete review needs to take place when all positions become vacant and before new positions are created. A review needs to take place on all non-teaching positions to ensure relevancy of the position as it relates to our goals.

4. Role of testing is to gauge the alignment of the curriculum to the state standards. It will also focus on quality of instruction of teachers.

5. This is not an either/or question, but the success of our school system depends on both concepts working in conjunction with each other. Cambridge public schools need a consistent curriculum across the school system.

6. I would utilize these relationships to work in alignment with our goals. One such goal is we need to increase the number of minority teachers and administrators throughout the school system. Area universities can offer scholarships to students.

Ben Lummis

1. Because of my background in school improvement and change I would have pushed for a process that used explicit criteria, data, and legitimate community input. I would have also pushed the committee to stick to the original timeline and make a decision much earlier than the current school committee did.

2. We need to get focused on a clear direction for the high school, make the curriculum, more coherent and more challenging and support and supervise teachers so they are all qualified to teach challenging classes.  We need consistent leadership that can help teachers, student, and parents make progress toward excellence.

3. I would direct resources away from positions in the bloated central administration and toward schools and classrooms. Specifically, teachers need more support in their schools on professional development and meeting the many needs of their students.

4. Standardized testing should have a limited role as part of a more comprehensive system of measuring student learning.

5. The school system needs to be working toward the same outcomes across all of its schools. Schools and teachers can and should retain the individual style and character, but they need to be focused on making sure children are developing similar skills that are preparing them for the next step in their education.

6. By having a focused plan for how to use the resources across the system and within each school. The university partnerships should build on the goals and vision of the schools, not supplant or override it simply because there is money attached.

Marc McGovern

1. I would have shown a great deal of respect to parents and school communities. I would have made sure that before any plan was passed there was a sound transition plan to insure the best outcomes in the new schools. I would have made sure that whatever plan was passed made educational sense and was not based on political agendas.

2. To improve achievement at the high school we need to set a clear vision that demands rigorous curriculum at every level. We need to support teachers who, despite an average cost of $17,000 per student, still do not have all the supplies, materials and in-service training they need to do their jobs effectively. Above all else, the high school needs stability.

3. Yes. I would pull together teachers, principals, parents and school administrators to determine what supports and services are needed to create healthy, creative, nurturing school environments and then make sure those positions are funded.

4. Standardized testing should be used to help paint a picture of the areas in which a student needs improvement.

5. Standardizing curriculum and setting benchmarks for learning are different. One of the wonderful aspects of Cambridge public school system is that we have schools that offer different teaching philosophies. What we need, however, is to set benchmarks that standardizes the skills that will be taught in each grade, so that children across the district are learning similar skills while still maintaining our elementary schools individual character.

6. The school department must establish and maintain a working relationship with local colleges and universities. Communication between these groups has traditionally not been productive and has resulted in a less than beneficial relationship.

Nancy Walser

1. I think I helped communicate with my colleagues and find a middle ground so that the consolidation could take place, our strongest schools could be supported, and the school district as a whole could move ahead with improvement efforts.

2. One of the goals we have worked out with the superintendent includes five things to do at the high school: to make sure the curriculum is rigorous and consistent across the five small schools, to align the School Improvement Plan to new benchmarks for improvement; to achieve full accreditation as soon as possible, to administer a climate survey to teachers and students and to plan for implementing a better schedule in 2005. He has also promised to improve the evaluation of teachers throughout the district.

3. If the superintendent decides that some positions or programs need to be eliminated in order to accomplish our goals, the SC should support him. I will.

4. Diagnostic, to help teachers help students.

5. No. The superintendent found a way in his previous district (Ft. Wayne, Indiana) to make progress closing the achievement gap in a school district with a variety of different types of schools... Also, if you want to attract the best teachers, you have to allow them some measure of creativity. On the other hand, we also need to make sure our elementary students arrive at our one high school with equivalent skills.

6. Another reason why I supported hiring Fowler-Finn is because he had a good working relationship with area colleges. He is very open to meeting with others who want to help the public schools, but would like to coordinate the offers with the goals we have set for the schools.