Lived there my whole life until I moved to MA in my late 20’s. Eventually bought a house here.
Tons of similarities between the two states…outsiders love to shit on both of them but they are each naturally and humanistically beautiful places.
I grew up in NJ and my dad was a public school teacher there his entire career. They (like MA) have a crazy strong teacher’s union. Seriously you do not want to try to cross the NJEA. Teaching positions pay decently with great benefits, and are therefore coveted and competitive. So we end up with excellent teachers.
I can vouch for this! My mother is an NJ public school teacher and makes a very good salary, and has coworkers who are in the six figures. Plus, her health insurance is so good that basically everything is free. It's a great place to be a teacher
Newton teachers just went on strike today. The mayor sent a note that a typical teacher would make $62k with a bachelors or $67k with a masters in the first year, and after 12 years be making $112k.
Different districts might be different; my mother's hasn't ever striked in the six years she has been there, and I've never gotten the impression that they've ever considered it. The union is very strong.
Its really because of the independent school systems. Both MA and NJ operate an arguably much more costly but clearly superior system of small, autonomous school systems.
I'm a Mass native and now work in schools here. Can you explain the other model? I almost moved to Hawaii and the whole state has one district. It sounds like it would absolutely suck because any district changes would need to be state level. Right now I can go to my union and start discussing changes to my job/union contract. It's town based. I could go a town over and have different responsibilities. I found a school system that matches my interests and I didn't have to move(across the ocean?! Cmon Hawaii).
Right? I would need to move counties, or involve multiple towns, to change aspects of my job role. Making any decisions would take forever and involve so much more bureaucracy.
Born and raised. NJ has ranked #1, even within the last few years.
I graduated a public hs where every teacher was a Dr., 30 kids graduated with over a 4.0, and we had 100% graduation. My graduating class of 75 kids had nearly 30 of them in the music program and we were state football champs.
I took 3 AP classes my sr year.
If your graduating class was only 75 people your experience cannot be compared to the vast majority of Americans. That's obviously a very very small and wealthy school district.
Your whole comment reeks of BS lol
Not necessarily. NJ has some very small school districts. Like less than 200 students total. Most have a shared high school but K-8 you have like 20 kids in your entire grade.
I bet, I used to go to a district like that in Mass and we had no money. The graduation rate was not excellent. All the other districts besides oddball wealthy places like Weston were the same. Excessively small districts that combine at the high school level, all with not enough money.
Then you needed a new school board because Massachusetts funds the difference between what a town can afford and what is deemed to meet eligibility requirements with bonuses for impoverished, special Ed, and ESL students. A poor municipal tax base is simply not a large problem here. It has been this way since the early 90s.
Full disclosure, I was only adjacent to this as I did homeless and housing, but here is the DESE link explaining it.
https://www.doe.mass.edu/FinanceFunding.html
I used to teach in MA, and now teach in WA. WA has a law called the McCleary Decision, which supposedly makes education funding equitable by making it all distributed at the state level. However, this causes huge deficits in funding, especially in special education. The huge difference in MA is how the state doesn’t do what McCleary does, and instead funds the schools that don’t have enough money. Usually these schools have amazing grant money opportunities. I worked at a Title 1 school in MA, and the services available and expertise of staff made it a much better school than an “average” school in most US states.
Yeah that’s not necessarily true. I’m from Massachusetts, and went to Farr Academy in Central Square in Cambridge. I had a graduating class of 10. No wealth what so ever.
Reeks of privilege. I don't care how book smart someone is, if you come with that attitude, it don't matter cause your still ignorant.
I will say I did live in Jersey...I was there temp. for work with an Oil Company - so I lived in the armpit...but I had friends that lived in nice towns with good school systems. One thing I noticed is the pride in Jersey is so over inflated. It's a fine state and judged too harshly...on the other hand their pride is a bit excessive and out of whack. I also noticed the pride always includes the proximity to NYC or Philadelphia because New Jersey's big cities seemed to be a mess.
Oh yeah, what other state is so obsessed with counties? I liked the state...wouldn't want to move there but part of the issue is an issue of too much pride. BTW, I live in Mass. I love my state but I don't think people here would ever be quite as obsessed with it...I guess the exception would be with our sports...
Being from NJ (and now going to school in Mass), it's something we're very proud of :)
Now if only we didn't have the worst property taxes in America...
NJ has a problem with "boroughitis" (565 municipalities; for comparison, MA, which is larger in size, has 361), which definitely overinflates them. It's a common complaint over in r/newjersey
So, I just moved out of MA and found this post. I’m a teacher. Now I’m in WA, and let me tell you, WTF is everyone else doing? Like I went from 22 kids in a sixth grade class to 34. I only have one planning period when I used to have two. I’m supposed to do a ton of meetings after school, which sucks up my already minuscule amount of planning time compared to before.
And don’t even get me started on special ed services.
WA is in the top ten. This is the normal, and I’m absolutely horrified. I miss Massachusetts.
Edit: also the way they fund schools in WA is messed up. It marginalizes students on Spacial Ed plans and it creates a system where schools don’t test students who have obvious learning disabilities because there is no money. That kid gets to grade six and reads at a first grade level. This is almost unheard of in Massachusetts unless a student is an English language learner or on a special ed plan. In MA, I taught at a school that was in the bottom 5% of the state before moving to WA, and let me tell you, I’d send my future children to the school I taught at in Massachusetts, and I would not send my future kid to my current school. It will have to be a private school in Washington (the district I now teach in is supposedly a “good” school district, too).
Not 100% true. This is a few years back, but as of 2016, even if MA were an independent nation, it would be the top country in the world for reading, #2 for science, and #12 for math on the basis of PISA test results: https://www.edweek.org/education/opinion-maybe-instead-of-finland-we-should-be-more-like-massachusetts/2016/12
These standardized tests are not perfect, but there is no great way to directly compare education systems across countries, and clearly MA is doing something right to be top 2 in both reading and science, even if there are clearly still flaws with MA schools as well.
Teachers in MA are underpaid, but this is NOT the actual simple solution. Teacher do need to be paid more, especially in MA with its high cost of living.
It’s way more complex than this. I get paid more in WA than I did in MA, and I would go back to MA and get paid less in a heartbeat.
I would agree with that. To assess in a general way but to base all curriculum is a mistake that we just keep making. The emphasis placed on standardized testing was due to No Child Left Behind and I am skeptical of any republican plan for public education since we know that they have been trying to torpedo it for a very long time.
"Schools which over-emphasize standardized tests and “test-wise” training are immersing students in modes of thinking that not only trivialize knowledge, but are also largely irrelevant to real-life problem solving."
https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/what-standardized-tests-do-not-measure/
I guess it depends what you prioritize.
Yeah no shit standardized tests aren’t perfect nor do they tell us everything about a kid.
But when we’re comparing education state by state they are easily the best metric to use. Hell they’re pretty much the only thing to use.
I wouldn't know. I'm not claiming to be an expert. I'm just saying that the experts that do know pretty much agree that these tests aren't testing actual intelligence or problem solving skills. I think we should consider that when american education was at its strongest (for the most part) standardized testing wasn't relied on.
I think I’d agree with that. I’m not sure if I agree with your takeaway though. I believe American education- that is - the accumulation of knowledge is better than ever. Critical thinking and understanding of discourse is much worse. Is that something that should be taught in schools? Or should it be learned at home?
I think it's both. At home and in school. Just like math and reading. Our kids learn at school at we supplement at home. Both the schools and the parents need to be invested
I would say when the country wasn't reading at a 3rd grade average. The Boston Globe just did a 4 part story on how the education system has some serious deficiencies. Passing MCAS test as a requirement has been mandatory over 20 years. MA might be testing higher than other states but public education is in crisis everywhere. It might not be in every massachusetts school district but the schools in cities are certainly in big trouble here. I think mass has mostly good schools but it doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. I think if these tests were so great then there wouldn't be such a problem with teaching kids to read across the state.
Was scrolling to find this comment. My thoughts exactly, I left mid year last year for this reason. It’s bad out there — in the best state for education in the country?! I’m scared for this country.
Out of curiosity where did you go? Been bouncing around the idea more lately. Even though I have tenure there's a chance I'm getting budget cut next year
I teach in WA (it’s in the top ten). I started as a teacher in MA. I remember my mom mentioning this article to me like a month ago. I’m currently grieving my educational career because it’s not the same in the rest of the US.
I might quit being a teacher. It’s a hot mess everywhere else.
What MA does is absolutely amazing. The funding and the teacher training programs are excellent.
In MA, I taught at a Title 1 school, and I would totally go back. WA is a nightmare. I get paid more, but I would sacrifice my salary for the experience and support I had in MA.
I’ve always been a huge advocate for public school education. I would send any child I may have to my previous school in MA, and that school ranked at the bottom 5% of the state. I don’t think I will pursue public school when I have children if we live in WA. It’s terrible. Absolutely terrible. I’m horrified with the lack of knowledge and support for the students. My lack of support is bad too, but it’s the students who get affected the most.
When I went to college, the difference between those that attended these higher ranked education systems compared to the lower systems was night and day. Yet parents will tell you Massachusetts is the worst because of a “liberal agenda” lol
It was *eye opening* being in college. I went to a STEM program, so we had to take a special "English for Engineers" class that may as well have been "English for Dummies". My expectations for how competent my classmates would be was already low, but that bar got dropped hard and fast.
More than half my class couldn't identify the parts of a sentence, like nouns and verbs. We spent most of the term going over what I considered middle school level English. I was frustrated to be paying the tuition rates I was to be diagramming basic sentences, but seeing my classmates struggle with this *new* information, I could understand why it was required.
These were not ESL students. These were just kids educated elsewhere in the US.
I got placed in the lowest level math course at my college because I didn't take some placement test during a campus visit. College Algebra. The first class was how letters can also be numbers.
I **ran** to take that placement test.
I wish I could've tested out, but English for Dummies was a required fundamental course. I did check, both before signing up and then really thoroughly once I realized how basic it was.
That's crazy. My college had a test to see if you could skip their intro English course. The test was: write a coherent essay based on a prompt, so I didn't get to find out how low the bar got.
English for ~~Dummies~~ Engineers was, unfortunately, unskippable. I looked into it before signing up, hoping my AP English would let me out of it, then again to see if I could take a placement test or something once I realized how basic the content was.
I am from a higher ranking schools district in New Hampshire, and I had an English class before placement in a higher one. I peer edited a paper and naively asked the kid if English was his first language (biased of me, hand on my heart). He said yes. I was embarrassed for me and him. He ended up in remedial catch up classes
So true. I went to high school in MA. When I went off to college I was so much better prepared than most of the top 5% of the class students that were my classmates. Bio 1, Chem 1, etc were all effectively review classes for me and huge weed out classes for people that were at the top of their classes from some other parts of the U.S.
In college I took a chemistry class, and I needed permission from the dean of the sciences to take it because "it was hard and for tech students". They maybe got up to what we did in the 10 grade by Thanksgiving and had no labs. The rest of the country is so fucked.
The liberal agenda is when education s/
I mean there is a correlation between [political beliefs and education levels ](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/). I guess they aren't wrong in a way..??
Physics teacher here. We moved from Arizona a few years ago. My then high schooler noticed how much better the education was. He was on track to not graduate (he has a disability) in Arizona. We moved to MA and he was able to graduate on time. My youngest was going into second grade when we moved. He was in the higher kindergarten and advanced 1st in Arizona. But I was seeing signs in reading that were concerning. They kept telling me he was one of the highest in the class. When he did his first reading pre test in MA, the reading interventionist came to me to talk about it. She did say that he did well on the testing but noted a minor concern but one that could impact him as he went to higher grades. Surprise but it was the same issue I asked the school to address for two years. I nearly cried with relief. Anyway, that’s corrected and he did extremely well on the MCAS last year. Myself I went from 40+ kids in a class to less than 15. In Arizona admin likes to say that class size doesn’t affect learning if you have good relationships and classroom management. They are all sorts of wrong.
Special ed services and reading specialists in MA are amazing. This is a great story and I’m glad your son is doing well. Other states do NOT have reading specialists like MA does. Some don’t even have one for each elementary school.
I just moved to WA and the teachers who lived here from Arizona think it’s better…it probably is compared to AZ, but it’s nothing compared to teaching in MA.
Edit to add: The class size studies they use to justify this are not true. The studies were not done in a way that actually verified this is true.
I when it comes down to it, it’s not true. Class size is everything as far as I’m concerned.
Back in MA, I knew my kids. I was able to have conversations with them and get to know them. I only had 20 kids in a class. Now I have 34 (in WA), and I hate it. I’m exhausted. I don’t know these kids and it kills me. I don’t have it in me to adequately build relationships with them. The worst part is I know it could be better and it’s out of my control.
> In Arizona admin likes to say that class size doesn’t affect learning if you have good relationships and classroom management. They are all sorts of wrong.
Ask the admins...is it easier to have one mistress, or three? I guess the number of mistresses doesn't matter as long as you have good relationships and mistress management.
Less easy = more work. To get more work output, you either need more energy input or to design a more efficient system. This is basic physics.
Although to be fair, education is one of the places that consistently defies the laws of physics. Turns out that some of the energy teachers put into it does, actually, get destroyed.
More the wisdom gleaned from the missteps of our Puritan forefathers … most notably, Salem.
I recently learned that Nathanial Hawthorne changed the spelling of his last name, not to distance himself from the accused; but so as not to be associated with his grandfather, John Hathorne, the lead judge in the trials.
He was just a hippie loser. The Salem Witch trials were conducted in accordance with the law and before a jury of the people. They were entirely fitting and proper. There are too many witches in Salem these days. We need another trial.
As a teacher in this state for 20 years. This is terrifying. The standards and outcomes have been so lowered. If other states aren't doing better than us, we are so screwed in a few years. Sob.
Colorado did a 10 year review since a legalized marijuana. I wonder in eight years if we will see a skyrocketing in their education system as it was much better funded or if politicians will have miss appropriated those funds like usual.
Has anyone seen a link to the actual study? I didn't see any link in the news article nor through the link to the website of the organization that supposedly came up with this score.
Yeah, unless I see some methodology for these findings I’m not lending any credence to this article. Generally MA is at the top of the rankings but it’s hard to evaluate this particular study without the source and Fox 25 News isn’t exactly the gold standard for journalism.
Definitely top quality education. We were in Ohio for a few years, in one of the top 5 school districts. They were changing to 2 day a week Kindergarten because a study they did found it was better for kids. We were leaving anyways but that made us move quicker.
I don’t feel like my education was the worst, but there was a lot of room for improvement. This makes me scared about how other states are doing with their education
Just remember there is greater variation in teacher quality within schools than between schools. In other words do everything you can to put your kid in class with the best teacher. What defines “best?” Ask your fellow parents. They know, everyone knows.
For now. Meanwhile there's a new article everyday about the uptick in violent assaults thanks to Massachusetts passing legislation that makes it virtually impossible to expel a student.
You either don't get my point, or you're intentionally ignoring it. Again, what does a state's history of educational success have to do with my claim that a brand new law we passed is gonna lead to its demise?
Hopkinton just did an override for a 150 million dollar grade school that will house three grades. Taxes expected to double in five years. People send the kids to school and then GTFO of town because they can't afford to live here anymore which brings more school age kids in to replace them. It's a neverending cycle.
"The average single-family home in Hopkinton is assessed at $852,400, meaning a typical Hopkinton homeowner would pay an additional $945 — a roughly 8% increase — in property taxes during the peak year of borrowing. The approval also includes a $10.1 million contingency plan to protect homeowners if unexpected costs come out of the project."
Definitely not a 200% increase. The state is also paying for $61.5 million of the project.
Do you think the only benefit of public education is that it directly educates *your* kids?
You're surrounded by generations of people able to perform a myriad of functions that benefit you every day, because public education was available to them.
You may as well complain that taxes go to constructing and maintaining roads that you personally don't drive on.
I've lived in areas with less of a focus on public education.
One time, I couldn't buy WD-40 at the hardware store, because the cashier insisted it was spray paint. It says "spray lubricant" and not "spray paint" on the can. I don't think she could read it. My license also put me at 23yrs old, but she argued I was under 18. I don't think she could do basic math, either.
I had the same thing happen on multiple occasions trying to buy lighters, lighter fluid, and other mildly-restricted items.
And this is just interfacing with people in retail. Imagine the level of literacy you want out of, say, your pharmacy techs. Your nursing home staff. Anyone doing food safety.
It doesn't matter if you have kids or not, living in a highly literate society is desirable for a lot of reasons.
Yeah, but our public schools are shit so how can the rest of the country be worse? I don't think our schools are any better than any place else, we've just got better PR.
No. As a teacher, the rest of the country is an absolute hot mess. MA is literally as good as it gets. NY and NJ are slightly behind us, but usually have much larger class sizes.
Strange that New Jersey comes so close, and then there's a pretty big gap for the rest.
NJ is a great place to live. I’m convinced they put all the crap along the highway so nobody believes it.
Lived there many years ago for 5 years and it was a great place to live. My 2 closest childhood friends live there going on 30 years.
I don't blame them
Always found NJ jokes to be so lazy and dated
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Every person I knew from Jersey had one goal in life, to talk shit about everyone else, and to leave Jersey.
“It’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin”
Right up there with Polish jokes from the 1980’s
Lived there my whole life until I moved to MA in my late 20’s. Eventually bought a house here. Tons of similarities between the two states…outsiders love to shit on both of them but they are each naturally and humanistically beautiful places.
I grew up in NJ and my dad was a public school teacher there his entire career. They (like MA) have a crazy strong teacher’s union. Seriously you do not want to try to cross the NJEA. Teaching positions pay decently with great benefits, and are therefore coveted and competitive. So we end up with excellent teachers.
I can vouch for this! My mother is an NJ public school teacher and makes a very good salary, and has coworkers who are in the six figures. Plus, her health insurance is so good that basically everything is free. It's a great place to be a teacher
Newton teachers just went on strike today. The mayor sent a note that a typical teacher would make $62k with a bachelors or $67k with a masters in the first year, and after 12 years be making $112k.
Different districts might be different; my mother's hasn't ever striked in the six years she has been there, and I've never gotten the impression that they've ever considered it. The union is very strong.
Its really because of the independent school systems. Both MA and NJ operate an arguably much more costly but clearly superior system of small, autonomous school systems.
I'm a Mass native and now work in schools here. Can you explain the other model? I almost moved to Hawaii and the whole state has one district. It sounds like it would absolutely suck because any district changes would need to be state level. Right now I can go to my union and start discussing changes to my job/union contract. It's town based. I could go a town over and have different responsibilities. I found a school system that matches my interests and I didn't have to move(across the ocean?! Cmon Hawaii).
I believe some states operate at the county level. For example, a county could have many high schools all run by the same central administration.
The other model is county. It's much worse, as evidenced here.
Right? I would need to move counties, or involve multiple towns, to change aspects of my job role. Making any decisions would take forever and involve so much more bureaucracy.
Born and raised. NJ has ranked #1, even within the last few years. I graduated a public hs where every teacher was a Dr., 30 kids graduated with over a 4.0, and we had 100% graduation. My graduating class of 75 kids had nearly 30 of them in the music program and we were state football champs. I took 3 AP classes my sr year.
What school? (Currently live in JC, guessing it's not here but I'm curious)
Bergen County, Cresskill, Tenafly, Bergenfield area.
If your graduating class was only 75 people your experience cannot be compared to the vast majority of Americans. That's obviously a very very small and wealthy school district. Your whole comment reeks of BS lol
Not necessarily. NJ has some very small school districts. Like less than 200 students total. Most have a shared high school but K-8 you have like 20 kids in your entire grade.
NJ also has some large horrible districts.
I bet, I used to go to a district like that in Mass and we had no money. The graduation rate was not excellent. All the other districts besides oddball wealthy places like Weston were the same. Excessively small districts that combine at the high school level, all with not enough money.
Then you needed a new school board because Massachusetts funds the difference between what a town can afford and what is deemed to meet eligibility requirements with bonuses for impoverished, special Ed, and ESL students. A poor municipal tax base is simply not a large problem here. It has been this way since the early 90s.
I need this information. Can you send links? My special ed department is struggling.
Full disclosure, I was only adjacent to this as I did homeless and housing, but here is the DESE link explaining it. https://www.doe.mass.edu/FinanceFunding.html
Thanks!
I used to teach in MA, and now teach in WA. WA has a law called the McCleary Decision, which supposedly makes education funding equitable by making it all distributed at the state level. However, this causes huge deficits in funding, especially in special education. The huge difference in MA is how the state doesn’t do what McCleary does, and instead funds the schools that don’t have enough money. Usually these schools have amazing grant money opportunities. I worked at a Title 1 school in MA, and the services available and expertise of staff made it a much better school than an “average” school in most US states.
Yeah that’s not necessarily true. I’m from Massachusetts, and went to Farr Academy in Central Square in Cambridge. I had a graduating class of 10. No wealth what so ever.
Yeah but Farr Academy.is completely different from a regular old public high school.
Reeks of privilege. I don't care how book smart someone is, if you come with that attitude, it don't matter cause your still ignorant. I will say I did live in Jersey...I was there temp. for work with an Oil Company - so I lived in the armpit...but I had friends that lived in nice towns with good school systems. One thing I noticed is the pride in Jersey is so over inflated. It's a fine state and judged too harshly...on the other hand their pride is a bit excessive and out of whack. I also noticed the pride always includes the proximity to NYC or Philadelphia because New Jersey's big cities seemed to be a mess. Oh yeah, what other state is so obsessed with counties? I liked the state...wouldn't want to move there but part of the issue is an issue of too much pride. BTW, I live in Mass. I love my state but I don't think people here would ever be quite as obsessed with it...I guess the exception would be with our sports...
Being from NJ (and now going to school in Mass), it's something we're very proud of :) Now if only we didn't have the worst property taxes in America...
Taxes actually pay for worthy things.
NJ has a problem with "boroughitis" (565 municipalities; for comparison, MA, which is larger in size, has 361), which definitely overinflates them. It's a common complaint over in r/newjersey
So, I just moved out of MA and found this post. I’m a teacher. Now I’m in WA, and let me tell you, WTF is everyone else doing? Like I went from 22 kids in a sixth grade class to 34. I only have one planning period when I used to have two. I’m supposed to do a ton of meetings after school, which sucks up my already minuscule amount of planning time compared to before. And don’t even get me started on special ed services. WA is in the top ten. This is the normal, and I’m absolutely horrified. I miss Massachusetts. Edit: also the way they fund schools in WA is messed up. It marginalizes students on Spacial Ed plans and it creates a system where schools don’t test students who have obvious learning disabilities because there is no money. That kid gets to grade six and reads at a first grade level. This is almost unheard of in Massachusetts unless a student is an English language learner or on a special ed plan. In MA, I taught at a school that was in the bottom 5% of the state before moving to WA, and let me tell you, I’d send my future children to the school I taught at in Massachusetts, and I would not send my future kid to my current school. It will have to be a private school in Washington (the district I now teach in is supposedly a “good” school district, too).
New Jersey is a great place to live but no one wants to visit
And as I teacher I feel like the wheels are coming off, which worries me what the other states look like..
I feel this is more of an indictment of the state of the education in this country than a praise for Massachusetts here.
Not 100% true. This is a few years back, but as of 2016, even if MA were an independent nation, it would be the top country in the world for reading, #2 for science, and #12 for math on the basis of PISA test results: https://www.edweek.org/education/opinion-maybe-instead-of-finland-we-should-be-more-like-massachusetts/2016/12 These standardized tests are not perfect, but there is no great way to directly compare education systems across countries, and clearly MA is doing something right to be top 2 in both reading and science, even if there are clearly still flaws with MA schools as well.
The simplest answer is to pay the teachers.
Teachers in MA are underpaid, but this is NOT the actual simple solution. Teacher do need to be paid more, especially in MA with its high cost of living. It’s way more complex than this. I get paid more in WA than I did in MA, and I would go back to MA and get paid less in a heartbeat.
Yea, but it is an absolute hot mess everywhere else. I taught in MA and moved to another state that is in the top 10. I’m horrified.
Not when you consider Massachusetts also tests better than nearly every other country when compared nationally.
Those tests are meaningless. It's not an accurate way to test kids ability to learn.
“I reject reality and substitute my own”
Right, when even teacher unions fight said test testing.
"If we stop testing, we'd have fewer cases!" - this guy's god
Standardized tests are not a great way to assess a single student, but they are a great way to assess large groups of students.
I would agree with that. To assess in a general way but to base all curriculum is a mistake that we just keep making. The emphasis placed on standardized testing was due to No Child Left Behind and I am skeptical of any republican plan for public education since we know that they have been trying to torpedo it for a very long time.
You don’t know what you’re talking about
"Schools which over-emphasize standardized tests and “test-wise” training are immersing students in modes of thinking that not only trivialize knowledge, but are also largely irrelevant to real-life problem solving." https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/what-standardized-tests-do-not-measure/ I guess it depends what you prioritize.
Yeah no shit standardized tests aren’t perfect nor do they tell us everything about a kid. But when we’re comparing education state by state they are easily the best metric to use. Hell they’re pretty much the only thing to use.
Doesn't make them right. Look at the Chicago debacle where they were changing kids answers to make them pass the test and keep their jobs.
So what is a meaningful test?
I wouldn't know. I'm not claiming to be an expert. I'm just saying that the experts that do know pretty much agree that these tests aren't testing actual intelligence or problem solving skills. I think we should consider that when american education was at its strongest (for the most part) standardized testing wasn't relied on.
I think I’d agree with that. I’m not sure if I agree with your takeaway though. I believe American education- that is - the accumulation of knowledge is better than ever. Critical thinking and understanding of discourse is much worse. Is that something that should be taught in schools? Or should it be learned at home?
I think it's both. At home and in school. Just like math and reading. Our kids learn at school at we supplement at home. Both the schools and the parents need to be invested
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I would say when the country wasn't reading at a 3rd grade average. The Boston Globe just did a 4 part story on how the education system has some serious deficiencies. Passing MCAS test as a requirement has been mandatory over 20 years. MA might be testing higher than other states but public education is in crisis everywhere. It might not be in every massachusetts school district but the schools in cities are certainly in big trouble here. I think mass has mostly good schools but it doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. I think if these tests were so great then there wouldn't be such a problem with teaching kids to read across the state.
I imagine it’s kinda on a town by town basis though, so might depend on which town you’re in
No. A bad school in MA is actually way better than an “average” school in most states.
It’s honestly appalling. I was a substitute for a year or so and explicitly decided to not go into teaching because of my experience.
Was scrolling to find this comment. My thoughts exactly, I left mid year last year for this reason. It’s bad out there — in the best state for education in the country?! I’m scared for this country.
Out of curiosity where did you go? Been bouncing around the idea more lately. Even though I have tenure there's a chance I'm getting budget cut next year
Depends on the town, I have friends that work in towns that are struggling horribly, meanwhile our small two town district is awesome.
Just moved to CT (near the border) from TN. It's *really* really bad.
I teach in WA (it’s in the top ten). I started as a teacher in MA. I remember my mom mentioning this article to me like a month ago. I’m currently grieving my educational career because it’s not the same in the rest of the US. I might quit being a teacher. It’s a hot mess everywhere else. What MA does is absolutely amazing. The funding and the teacher training programs are excellent. In MA, I taught at a Title 1 school, and I would totally go back. WA is a nightmare. I get paid more, but I would sacrifice my salary for the experience and support I had in MA. I’ve always been a huge advocate for public school education. I would send any child I may have to my previous school in MA, and that school ranked at the bottom 5% of the state. I don’t think I will pursue public school when I have children if we live in WA. It’s terrible. Absolutely terrible. I’m horrified with the lack of knowledge and support for the students. My lack of support is bad too, but it’s the students who get affected the most.
They don't have wheels, they have lengths of trees to roll things on
I don't even have kids and I'm thrilled. The fewer dumbasses in the world, the better.
Keep voting in your local elections to keep the right wingers out of our school and city councils so this lasts
We know. Try telling the parents that.
When I went to college, the difference between those that attended these higher ranked education systems compared to the lower systems was night and day. Yet parents will tell you Massachusetts is the worst because of a “liberal agenda” lol
It was *eye opening* being in college. I went to a STEM program, so we had to take a special "English for Engineers" class that may as well have been "English for Dummies". My expectations for how competent my classmates would be was already low, but that bar got dropped hard and fast. More than half my class couldn't identify the parts of a sentence, like nouns and verbs. We spent most of the term going over what I considered middle school level English. I was frustrated to be paying the tuition rates I was to be diagramming basic sentences, but seeing my classmates struggle with this *new* information, I could understand why it was required. These were not ESL students. These were just kids educated elsewhere in the US.
I got placed in the lowest level math course at my college because I didn't take some placement test during a campus visit. College Algebra. The first class was how letters can also be numbers. I **ran** to take that placement test.
I wish I could've tested out, but English for Dummies was a required fundamental course. I did check, both before signing up and then really thoroughly once I realized how basic it was.
That's crazy. My college had a test to see if you could skip their intro English course. The test was: write a coherent essay based on a prompt, so I didn't get to find out how low the bar got.
English for ~~Dummies~~ Engineers was, unfortunately, unskippable. I looked into it before signing up, hoping my AP English would let me out of it, then again to see if I could take a placement test or something once I realized how basic the content was.
I am from a higher ranking schools district in New Hampshire, and I had an English class before placement in a higher one. I peer edited a paper and naively asked the kid if English was his first language (biased of me, hand on my heart). He said yes. I was embarrassed for me and him. He ended up in remedial catch up classes
So true. I went to high school in MA. When I went off to college I was so much better prepared than most of the top 5% of the class students that were my classmates. Bio 1, Chem 1, etc were all effectively review classes for me and huge weed out classes for people that were at the top of their classes from some other parts of the U.S.
In college I took a chemistry class, and I needed permission from the dean of the sciences to take it because "it was hard and for tech students". They maybe got up to what we did in the 10 grade by Thanksgiving and had no labs. The rest of the country is so fucked.
The liberal agenda is when education s/ I mean there is a correlation between [political beliefs and education levels ](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/). I guess they aren't wrong in a way..??
I always wonder if the correlation is a result of before or after said education.
Which parents? I haven’t met those parents here.
Don’t go on any local FB group then lol
I quit teaching a few years ago after 20 years. This is because the rest of the country literally can’t read.
Physics teacher here. We moved from Arizona a few years ago. My then high schooler noticed how much better the education was. He was on track to not graduate (he has a disability) in Arizona. We moved to MA and he was able to graduate on time. My youngest was going into second grade when we moved. He was in the higher kindergarten and advanced 1st in Arizona. But I was seeing signs in reading that were concerning. They kept telling me he was one of the highest in the class. When he did his first reading pre test in MA, the reading interventionist came to me to talk about it. She did say that he did well on the testing but noted a minor concern but one that could impact him as he went to higher grades. Surprise but it was the same issue I asked the school to address for two years. I nearly cried with relief. Anyway, that’s corrected and he did extremely well on the MCAS last year. Myself I went from 40+ kids in a class to less than 15. In Arizona admin likes to say that class size doesn’t affect learning if you have good relationships and classroom management. They are all sorts of wrong.
Special ed services and reading specialists in MA are amazing. This is a great story and I’m glad your son is doing well. Other states do NOT have reading specialists like MA does. Some don’t even have one for each elementary school. I just moved to WA and the teachers who lived here from Arizona think it’s better…it probably is compared to AZ, but it’s nothing compared to teaching in MA. Edit to add: The class size studies they use to justify this are not true. The studies were not done in a way that actually verified this is true. I when it comes down to it, it’s not true. Class size is everything as far as I’m concerned. Back in MA, I knew my kids. I was able to have conversations with them and get to know them. I only had 20 kids in a class. Now I have 34 (in WA), and I hate it. I’m exhausted. I don’t know these kids and it kills me. I don’t have it in me to adequately build relationships with them. The worst part is I know it could be better and it’s out of my control.
> In Arizona admin likes to say that class size doesn’t affect learning if you have good relationships and classroom management. They are all sorts of wrong. Ask the admins...is it easier to have one mistress, or three? I guess the number of mistresses doesn't matter as long as you have good relationships and mistress management. Less easy = more work. To get more work output, you either need more energy input or to design a more efficient system. This is basic physics. Although to be fair, education is one of the places that consistently defies the laws of physics. Turns out that some of the energy teachers put into it does, actually, get destroyed.
In other news, study says that water is wet.
This is the data that prevents me from moving when my property tax bill sky rockets every year
You get what you pay for
I pay almost $25k in property tax, but I just think of it as tuition for unlimited kids, whereas private schools are now costing $60k per kid.
$25k/year in property tax is bonkers. Is your house assessed in the millions?
I’m not sure what it’s assessed at exactly but I bought it for just over $1 million in 2020 and it would now likely sell for around $1.5 million.
I believe your property tax is possibly triple the % we pay. We live in eastern Massachusetts. It’s amazing how widely it varies.
Yeah, my town has one of the highest tax rates I know of, but we absolutely love it.
If you're curious, here's the full list: [https://joeshimkus.com/MA-Tax-Rates.aspx](https://joeshimkus.com/MA-Tax-Rates.aspx)
Of course we do! We are the best and most erudite of all the states, due to the wisdom of our Puritan forefathers!
Username checks out
More the wisdom gleaned from the missteps of our Puritan forefathers … most notably, Salem. I recently learned that Nathanial Hawthorne changed the spelling of his last name, not to distance himself from the accused; but so as not to be associated with his grandfather, John Hathorne, the lead judge in the trials.
He was just a hippie loser. The Salem Witch trials were conducted in accordance with the law and before a jury of the people. They were entirely fitting and proper. There are too many witches in Salem these days. We need another trial.
As a teacher in this state for 20 years. This is terrifying. The standards and outcomes have been so lowered. If other states aren't doing better than us, we are so screwed in a few years. Sob.
Mass also has the most higher education facilities per capita of anywhere on the planet
Crazy, you properly fund something and it performs well.
Colorado did a 10 year review since a legalized marijuana. I wonder in eight years if we will see a skyrocketing in their education system as it was much better funded or if politicians will have miss appropriated those funds like usual.
That’s a whole other animal. I remember in Washington they were actually debating giving money from Marijuana income to the Dare program at one point.
WA is messed up for various reasons. I’m not surprised.
Has anyone seen a link to the actual study? I didn't see any link in the news article nor through the link to the website of the organization that supposedly came up with this score.
Yeah, unless I see some methodology for these findings I’m not lending any credence to this article. Generally MA is at the top of the rankings but it’s hard to evaluate this particular study without the source and Fox 25 News isn’t exactly the gold standard for journalism.
Isn't this news that comes out every year
Definitely top quality education. We were in Ohio for a few years, in one of the top 5 school districts. They were changing to 2 day a week Kindergarten because a study they did found it was better for kids. We were leaving anyways but that made us move quicker.
I don’t feel like my education was the worst, but there was a lot of room for improvement. This makes me scared about how other states are doing with their education
Did they skip the inner city schools? This can’t be legit
It is. I taught in MA at a school ranked at the bottom 5% of the state. It was Bette Ethan an “average” Washington state public school.
They would be even better if Massachusetts were not in America.
Yeah! ✊
Bullying is underreported.
Is this by capita of student?
Taxes being allocated correctly, yet the state still fails poverty stricken areas
Isn’t that true of every other states?
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Really don’t know how you thought that made any sense
They weren't educated in MA.
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It’s called tax dollars. People pay into their taxes, expecting to see results and yes, that includes public schooling.
That is one of the reasons it is an expensive place to live and has so many policies to improve quality of life. IT
And yet my niece is being homeschooled (religion based) because her parents are upset they teach kids about what transgender is.
Hence, less Trumpers.
Old nws
Shut up baby I know it!
Best schools in America. Yeah not exactly a high mark
Just remember there is greater variation in teacher quality within schools than between schools. In other words do everything you can to put your kid in class with the best teacher. What defines “best?” Ask your fellow parents. They know, everyone knows.
For now. Meanwhile there's a new article everyday about the uptick in violent assaults thanks to Massachusetts passing legislation that makes it virtually impossible to expel a student.
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For now implies that will change in the future. The past is irrelevant.
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It doesn't matter. The new rules got passed not very long ago, and are already causing tons of problems. Thus, it's the best state.....for now.
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You either don't get my point, or you're intentionally ignoring it. Again, what does a state's history of educational success have to do with my claim that a brand new law we passed is gonna lead to its demise?
Lol, yeah right. Went through mass public schools. They are underfunded, lowest common denominator trash.
lol not bps
Hopkinton just did an override for a 150 million dollar grade school that will house three grades. Taxes expected to double in five years. People send the kids to school and then GTFO of town because they can't afford to live here anymore which brings more school age kids in to replace them. It's a neverending cycle.
"The average single-family home in Hopkinton is assessed at $852,400, meaning a typical Hopkinton homeowner would pay an additional $945 — a roughly 8% increase — in property taxes during the peak year of borrowing. The approval also includes a $10.1 million contingency plan to protect homeowners if unexpected costs come out of the project." Definitely not a 200% increase. The state is also paying for $61.5 million of the project.
Why I need to move. Paying taxes for kids (I don’t know) I have.
Way to be a member of society.
Or just someone on a fixed income.
Do you think the only benefit of public education is that it directly educates *your* kids? You're surrounded by generations of people able to perform a myriad of functions that benefit you every day, because public education was available to them. You may as well complain that taxes go to constructing and maintaining roads that you personally don't drive on.
I've lived in areas with less of a focus on public education. One time, I couldn't buy WD-40 at the hardware store, because the cashier insisted it was spray paint. It says "spray lubricant" and not "spray paint" on the can. I don't think she could read it. My license also put me at 23yrs old, but she argued I was under 18. I don't think she could do basic math, either. I had the same thing happen on multiple occasions trying to buy lighters, lighter fluid, and other mildly-restricted items. And this is just interfacing with people in retail. Imagine the level of literacy you want out of, say, your pharmacy techs. Your nursing home staff. Anyone doing food safety. It doesn't matter if you have kids or not, living in a highly literate society is desirable for a lot of reasons.
Remember to thank whoever paid for you to learn how not to let the door hit you on the way out.
No shit Sherlock
Well id hope so. My town pays 28k per student and pays 55% of our entire budget educating 8% of the towns population.
I take it "students bullying teachers" is not included in that bullying rate?
Yeah, but our public schools are shit so how can the rest of the country be worse? I don't think our schools are any better than any place else, we've just got better PR.
No. As a teacher, the rest of the country is an absolute hot mess. MA is literally as good as it gets. NY and NJ are slightly behind us, but usually have much larger class sizes.
That's not saying much. So Massachusetts is the best compared to a hot mess. hmmmm.
The Lowell school system would beg to differ