Race to the Top. Massachusetts Report. Year 2: School Year 2011-2012. [State-Specific Summary Report]
Author: Department of Education (ED)
Date: 2013-02-01
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Academic Standards,Accountability,Achievement Gap,Administrator Effectiveness,Alignment (Education),Budgets,Career Readiness,Charter Schools,College Readiness,Core Curriculum,Data,Educational Assessment,Educational Change,Educational Improvement,Elementary Secondary Education,Federal Legislation,Formative Evaluation,Grants,Higher Education,Language Arts,Leadership Effectiveness,Literacy,Low Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Measurement Objectives,Models,Outcomes of Education,Partnerships in Education,Poverty,Principals,Professional Development,Program Effectiveness,Program Implementation,School Districts,School Effectiveness,School Turnaround,State Government,State Standards,STEM Education,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Evaluation

The State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Massachusetts' Year 2 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2011 through September 2012. In Year 2, Massachusetts continued to implement strong systems to track progress of projects, assess risk, and provide support of project implementation as needed. The State fully implemented project management structures through the Delivery approach, which regularly assesses project progress and identifies potential problems based on predetermined goals and objectives. The Delivery process allows for a candid assessment of project risks and timely application of action plans for projects that may be getting off track. The State demonstrated a strong understanding of its progress and the areas that required additional support. Additionally, the State proactively collaborated with key stakeholders throughout the development of major components of its Race to the Top reform efforts, which resulted in greater buy-in from educators during implementation. While Massachusetts has put concerted time and resources into efforts to implement the schools interoperability framework (SIF) in order to improve the data collection process, there continued to be significant delays in this project. The State fell short of meeting its performance measure for this project for the first two years of the grant. In SY 2011-2012, the State reported that 100 percent of local educational agencies (LEAs) implemented the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which are incorporated into the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for Mathematics. LEAs faced challenges finalizing local collective bargaining agreements in time to prepare for implementation of educator evaluation systems in SY 2012-2013. The State reported in October 2012 that 88 of the 236 participating LEAs had ESE-approved evaluation system plans that align with the State's regulations. Massachusetts plans to fully implement the 2011 Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, which incorporate the CCSS, in Year 3. In addition, all Race to the Top participating LEAs will implement new educator evaluation systems. The State will continue to develop data systems and curricular materials that support these initiatives and will provide further guidance to LEAs as they roll out their new curricula and evaluations. A glossary is included. (Contains 11 footnotes.) [For &quot;Race to the Top. Massachusetts Report. Year 1: School Year 2010-2011. [State-Specific Summary Report],&quot; see ED529318.