The Globe is angry about Ruth Kaplan's selection to the Massachusetts Board of Education, because she's anti-MCAS. They're confused, they say, because he's selected pro-MCAS people to look at Massachusetts's entire educational system. Is he for the MCAS, as he's said all along, or against it?
If there is a cogent philosophy here, it's well disguised.
Really? Interesting that the Globe finds it so baffling, when they included this very sentence in the same piece:
He says he wants balanced views on the board in the interest of healthy debate.The "cogent philosophy" isn't well disguised. In fact, the philosophy is pretty damn well obvious; the Boston Globe just happens to disagree with it. However, back when I served at the State Student Advisory Council to the Board of Education as a chair of one of the committees and an executive member, I got to learn about just who sat on the Board of Ed. They were all gung-ho on charter schools, many of them coming from the Pioneer Institute. It goes without saying that MCAS was just swell with the entire lot; there weren't all too many disagreements. Sure, placing Ruth Kaplan on the Board of Ed could lead to "clashes," but that's pretty much exactly what the BoE needed: someone to clash with those types.
Next time, when the Globe just doesn't approve of a Patrick decision, they ought to have the spine to just come out and say it - instead of suggesting they just don't "get it." He's appointed Republicans and Democrats to all sorts of different committees - it's his shtick. He's far nicer than I'd be in his situation, but then again he understands that conservatives can have a few good ideas too - just like someone who's ardently against the MCAS may just have a few ideas on how to improve our state's educational system. It makes sense, whether the Globe editorial team likes it or not.
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