Too Many Left Behind New Choices and Challenges for Massachusetts School Reform

BOSTON COLLEGE CHANCELLOR REV. J. DONALD MONAN: It’s a privilege to welcome you. The seminars were created 54 years ago with a purpose of enlisting a new form of collaboration among individuals and groups in addressing problems in the city. It brings people together who have never worked together before. In the past years, the seminars have had roles in creative advances like the Prudential Center, Logan Airport and the MBTA. Perhaps no problem has been more critical to quality of life and economic development than the successes and lack of successes in pre-k through 12 education. The reform law of 1993 guaranteed equal funding and a systematic effort of measuring student achievement. I am sure no topic has been more thoughtfully or frequently considered than public education. Gains have been dramatic but shortcomings, many of them radical, have been frightening. The Readiness Project report will present a new strategic vision. Most of you are here for the opportunity to hear from Paul Reville, whose responsibility will be to invigorate that vision when he becomes secretary of education on July 1. First I introduce Greg Torres, president of MassINC, which has produced a superb edition of its Commonwealth magazine dedicated to the state of public education.

GREG TORRES, MASSINC PRESIDENT: Thank you. I would like to welcome everyone. I want to point out a few people who take time to be here with us. The CEO of the Boston Federal Reserve is here, Eric Rosengren. The editor of the Boston Globe Marty Baron. The man who presided over the renaissance of Boston University, John Silber is here. Early last year, MassINC planned three major activities for the 15th anniversary of ed reform, a special issue of the magazine, this event and a major research project in the field that is looking at test scores and spending by regions. The research is due for release in the fall. We look at what’s working and what needs to be done. We look at the unfinished business since the reform law of 1993. John Hamill took on municipal finance and more recently municipal health care costs and is a thoughtful and civic-minded business guy.

JOHN HAMILL, CHAIRMAN, SOVEREIGN BANK NEW ENGLAND: If you hang around long enough you do a lot of things. I was with banks that are no longer around. I worked for three banks but never changed my office over 28 years. I am pleased to be here. The seminar brings together large audiences of leaders from all walks of life in the city. Three organizations have come together here to look at this very important issue rather than host three separate seminars. Thanks for graciously agreeing to this temporary merger. Based on research about the governor’s education agenda, this is a timely issue and it is also a time for action. Paul Reville was a motivating force behind the education reform law of 1993. He was the founder of the Mass Business Alliance for Education and founded the Rennie Center. He served on the Board of Education. He has been a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Gov. Patrick in August 2007 appointed Paul to the Board of Education and recently appointed Paul secretary of education, with oversight of an Education Cabinet. He will assume that august role on July 1.

PAUL REVILLE, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION DESIGNATE: Thank you very much. Thanks for being here after a late-night Celtics game. I am really thrilled to be here. I see many heroes of education reform, people who labored deeply in the field. I take your presence here as testimony to the fact that we have a very special moment right now, which is why I’ve taken the job, a moment with real education leadership in the governor’s office to make a huge difference in launching the next phase of education and to make it happen, which is basically my job. You are the people in this room who are going to be capable of making it happen. Many of you have been part of our readiness effort. The Rennie Center was spawned from MassINC five years ago. I am sure you are all here in anticipation of the Readiness Project. I have the unenviable task of talking about what’s coming without revealing anything in particular. When we planned this event, it looked as though – I have been at this job one way or another for the last couple of months – we had planned this for just after the project’s release. In several days we in fact will be revealing the project and the governor’s action plan which derives from that. We will tell you everything at that time. If you listen closely today, you will hear a lot of hints and familiar themes today. You won’t be surprised to see things. Other items will come out as we release this at the beginning of next week. I want to use a few minutes to make the basic case, my campaign speech for why we are doing this. I want to talk about what to broadly expect from readiness. We are 15 years into the reform. We have not achieved the goals we originally set. We need to recommit ourselves to those ideals and look at the data and change our practice. I think of it as data driven policymaking. My basic premise is we develop policy and if we want it to last we do it with the field, not to the field. Second, doing well isn’t good enough. We are doing very well in Massachusetts. We have much to celebrate, leading the nation in 4th and 8th grade scores in English and math. We have a high SAT participation rate and do well in international studies on advanced placement and have the lowest dropout rate in the country. There is much to celebrate. Once we have done that, we need to look at results that are more troubling: the persistent achievement gap, that it’s still the case that socio-economic status and education attainment correlate. We have not succeeded. People in the field have tried hard. We have to learn from these gaps. We see the low-income correlation, that African Americans, Latinos, special needs students still have significant gaps. The most troubling gap is the gap between our best students and students around the world. We need to be concerned about that gap and the gap between children on average and our proficiency standard. We found all those gaps and we have to pay attention to them. We have set good solid standards, among the best in the nation. We have strong assessment and accountability system. We have restructured our educational finance system and built a variety of partnerships. Those are things well done. We have left other things unattended. We underestimated the amount of capacity building it would take to have our system deliver to the audaciously high standard that we set for it. We said all students at proficiency. All means all. No excuses. No exceptions. That was a bold goal. It was the appropriate goal. It was then. It is now. But we have to build the delivery system to make that a reality. We underestimated capacity building at the classroom level. Had teachers known how to get all students to proficiency, they would be doing it without the policy community telling them to. We need to build capacity in the state Department of Education, which is the same size as it was 15 years ago and half the size it was in the mid 1980s and it has triple the level of responsibility. School districts are asking us for help and we don’t have the capacity to deliver that. We underestimated the power of poverty in determining student achievement. We know of schools that beat the odds, schools that are mostly exceptions to the rule. There are certain disadvantages that accrue to poverty that are impediments to learning at a high level. We need to update our finance system to meet the realities of what we are asking the schools to do. We concentrated efforts on one piece, K-12, when we should have though more broadly and included early education and care and higher education. We adhered to and stuck with a basic model of a one size fits all delivery system, giving each child the same treatment when they arrive with different assets and deficits. It takes more time than we thought to raise the standard in areas beyond English and math. We are basically saddled now with an early 20th, late 19th Century education system grafted onto a 21st Century post-industrial age. It was built to move large numbers of immigrants in an urbanized society into an industrializing economy and to socialize those immigrants and to prepare them for low skill, low knowledge jobs. We are asking the same delivery system to serve us in a post-industrial information age with a very competitive world surrounding us where there is no place to go in the economy, especially in this state, for somebody who doesn’t have high skills and high knowledge. It’s the wrong delivery system for the goals of our time. It’s not nearly robust enough. We have to look at the way we treat time and treat differentiation. We are doing mass production education. My children are in the Worcester public schools. In that system, my daughter who has virtually every advantage in the book enters kindergarten with children with compounded disadvantages in every category. There are negative factors in their lives that get in the way. A system that puts them on an equal plane needs to serve them differently. We are saying take these kids coming in the front door and in 13 years, 180 days a year, six hours a day, make their opportunities in this grossly unequal society equal when they come out at the other end. We fire the gun and we go through the 13 years and we act surprised when they come out and different places and we often blame the schools. We have a right to expect returns but why in the same place at the same time? It’s like running the 100-yard dash when some participants start 300 yards back from the finish line and others start 50 yards from the finish line. We’ve got to think harder about building a 21st Century education system. This is urgent. This needs action. We need to rebuild this system that’s locked in the past. The goal is to create a 21st Century education system that meets every child where he or she is in early childhood, and gives them the support and guidance and direction and content and skills they need to be successful so that they emerge after some post-secondary education ready for success in the economy and jobs, in civil life and as heads of families and as lifelong learners. That is the goal and what the governor is going to be talking about. We need to overcome the learning disadvantages of poverty. We want to build a system of public education that does for all children what we routinely do for our children. We need to improve the quality of teaching and learning, from recruiting and sustaining high quality teachers. We need data driven policymaking. We don’t have an attractive profession for people with options. What are we going to do about it? We need to take another look at what we are teaching. We need to provide learning supports and opportunities that children need to emerge from this system successfully. We need to develop a portfolio on each child and give them what they need to get to the place where they need to go. I have worked with Gov. Patrick intensely over the past few months. Number one is creating this case, this sense of urgency that the future of this Commonwealth and economy depends on our capacity to do this work effectively. The governor felt a governance structure was important, one that would form a seamless system that would meet each child where they are and carry them along. We have a gap with students needing remedial education in higher education. My purpose is not to be a czar of education. What we need is a bully pulpit and coordinating capacity. We intend to get on the ground with you and make things happen. We are assembling a leadership team to carry out this work. I am almost 60 years old and for the first time we have a genuine education governor who lives, breathes and feels the opportunities and need to do something dramatic about public education. He has put together more than 200 people to help think about what the future looks like. That is perilous business. We can agree about broad objectives. We can sometimes disagree violently about what are the most important strategies. Discourse can move from civil to fractious. There are lots of different views within the Readiness Project. There were 13 subcommittees. We have worked hard over the last couple of months to bring together points of view and to develop with the governor an action plan about how we move forward. In the next week we will be emerging with an action plan which will reflect a set of choices. These choices don’t necessarily say one strategy is superior to another. But it simply says at this moment in time this seems to be the most highly leveraged point of entry that we can see in order to accomplish the goal of building this 21st Century system of education. There are going to be lots of objectives and strategies that we will be pointing to. Don’t be discouraged if your favorite one is not on the list. Come to the table. The spirit of civic engagement doesn’t stop with the Readiness Project. We do policy with our colleagues in the Legislature and with people in the field rather than bringing it down to them. The work of my office over the next few years will be to take those various strategies and craft them into viable language for statutes or regulations and get about the business of making things happen on the ground. This is long-term work, 12-year kind of work. But it’s important work. I have not talked much about specific recommendations but again if you listen closely you will hear things. The report will be organized in four areas, set of recommendations for students and teachers and teaching and with preparing every child for college and careers and recommendations for system innovations and upgrading the delivery system. There will be short, medium and long-term pieces. We talked last week about readiness schools. It’s an area we frankly have been stalled in, the debate over charter schools and vociferous and acrimonious division over lifting the cap or eliminating charter schools altogether. There has been a quest to find the perfect formula to satisfy charter school proponents and school leaders who feel they are being bled of critical resources when their buying power is going down anyway. We have to put taxpayers at the table who ask why pay more than 100 percent for any student who goes into any particular school? There isn’t any easy, simple solution for a formula that would make everyone happy. It seems to us we were trying to accomplish the creation of optimum chance that every school would enjoy the benefits we find in a very good school of teacher ownership of the work in that school, the feeling you get in a high quality school where teachers are so intimately tied into student achievement that they see it as part of their work and professional identity and integrity. That kind of ownership is often bred in an environment with some kind of autonomy. We are also looking for innovation and choice and diversity in systems and approaches. What can we do to migrate those principles into the system rather than reaching 2 percent of students? Charter schools have accomplished some amazing things. Our notion is to challenge school committees and the whole field to embrace autonomies and opportunities and to show flexibility inside, to in effect have a very challenging discourse with our friends in the field and say: we hear your complaint of money going outside and your resentment about the only place for autonomy is outside the school system. So now we have a moment as your friends to say you embrace this kind of autonomy within the school system and we will provide the opportunity for that money to stay in the school system even though charter option still exists. So we have come up with this option of readiness schools which are at the table for an open policy discussion. They could come into existence from teachers forming a private practice, from a system designating a school for special autonomy, through an outside provider, or through the state Board of Education by mandating the creation of a readiness school through a provider with a proven track record. The schools would operate on performance contracts where they would be held accountable for student performance. Money would be conveyed by a weighted student average. Union provisions would apply typically in most of these schools so collective bargaining would apply to salaries and benefits and due process dismissal processes. School committees would have decisions over the letting of contracts in accordance with provisions from the Board of Education. This is an example. Again, don’t get hung up on particular features because they are not done. As with everything coming out of readiness, we will be approaching the Legislature and other authorities in December or January with a first stage, first installment of implementation of the Readiness Project, the plan to put in place the 21st Century education system. In the interim we invite people to the table – not to reach consensus, probably too high an aspiration – but to get input. I want to conclude with a sense of urgency with which I started. This is work we can do. This is work we must do. We will disagree about how to do it and how to get there but I urge you to come back to the table with us and help us to the work. My children used to watch Bob the Builder. The saying was, can we built it? Yes we can. Can we do it?

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

REVILLE: Thank you very much. I look forward to working with you.

NICHOLAS DONAHUE, NELLIE MAE EDUCATION FOUNDATION CEO (MODERATOR): I am your moderator today. Paul, the Commonwealth is lucky to have you. Deftly done. He gave a great preview to the Readiness Project. Thanks to Boston College, the LaWare Forum and MassINC. We know at Nellie Mae that this is about partnership and learning and good investments. We are committed to working in the region to achieve the kinds of goals that Paul outlined. Earl Phalen of BELL was unable to make it due to a family emergency. Every panelist has an obligation to represent their affiliations. We talked about this engagement and having a real demonstration of opinion. We want to have a true engagement. I will ask questions and think about follow-ups. I will be careful about framing questions carefully. My wife says the more I try to say something the less she understands it. We have cards for your comments and questions and insights. Let me say a little bit about the filter. The topic is serious. The commonwealth made great progress but faces great challenges. The challenge for the poor and people of color is sometimes fatal. The focus is on dramatic improvement. What I heard Paul Reville talk about was real change, a larger majority that is successful. We are talking about what schools and schooling will look like. We need to talk about implications for teachers and teaching. There is a conception that schooling is about the academics but we have to think differently about that. And then a discussion about MCAS and where it goes from here. The first question for Grace Fey, you are a member of the business community and a representative of the Readiness Project. The business community was a champion of the ed reform act of 1993. There is silence and lip service and picking up pet projects and then there is making a deep commitment. Given that this change brings discomfort and challenge, what can the business community be expected to do to move the issues forward?

FEY : We are already seeing it. There are a lot of groups in town discussing education. What needs to be done is for more business leaders to truly understand the challenges. We know we are competing globally and that kids need skills. The business community can do a better job of working together. I just finished a project and was co-chairing the financial services part of it. It was the first time that many leaders came together to discuss these issues. Everyone was competitors. Combining forces is very important and let’s face it, none of this is going to happen without resources. The private sector can step up to the plate and provide resources.

DONAHUE: I don’t know if you also mean state resources. There is a question there about funding but the hard one is, is the readiness schools idea really the right move for promoting innovation?

FEY: The funding issue is probably the top issue. I was on the UMass Board and chaired it for four years. I learned about funding. There has to be a steady stream of funding from the state and private sector. None of this is going to happen without dollars. In terms of readiness schools, and I am speaking for myself, I think charter schools have been enormously successful. There is no doubt that if we look at measurements that charter schools are doing incredible things. But we need more than that. My hope is we will not abandon support for charter schools because they are working and that readiness schools can support what’s happening with charters.

DONAHUE: Chair Reilinger, Boston schools have been recognized for great gains. You have championed acceleration for learners who are behind. You support investments in professional development and leadership and you have taken the personal challenge of leading publicly. We know the public has mixed feelings about public leadership. On one hand, the ones they know they think nobly of but as a whole they have real questions. What can we do to convey seriousness?

REILINGER: There is no question that school boards are under great pressure to change. The committees are structured in a 19th Century model rather than mediating on behalf of all students in a district. It needs to be an education agenda that meets the needs of all students. That’s a very critical thing that needs to be addressed. Committees can be a stepping stone to political office and then it can be an adult agenda rather than an agenda for education and children. The Boston committee, being appointed, has removed some of that from the fray. Paul talked about collaboration. We need to be careful to talk to each other and focus on a couple of priorities. The tendency is to try to do 35 different things. We need to be at the table and focus on what are the two or three things we can move forward in an aggressive way?

DONAHUE: Collaboration is essential. You have a bold state leader promoting an agenda and a state with real dramatic responses to low performance. At the same time, you can’t give up on an ill patient. On the flip side, is it time to talk about more dramatic steps to close and really reorganize schools that are not succeeding?

REILINGER: Unquestionably. Accountability has to be first and foremost and we need to remove structural obstacles that don’t let us act on accountability issues when improvement is necessary. We need to do that in partnership with teachers and the business community. We need to constantly focus on the prevention approach. We need to get in earlier and make changes that need to be made. I am appreciative that the model ought to be prenatal through 16. We need to have students on an equal level on language and literacy development so they’re not behind the eight ball from the get-go.

DONAHUE: In Boston, pilot schools are seen as a success. You talk about collaboration. There is reticence among educators to embrace reforms. The path is rocky when the stakes are high. What needs to change to change that dynamic so teachers can fairly and fully embrace innovation and authorities can fairly apply accountability measures?

REILINGER: Boston in 1994 worked with the teachers union to set up pilot schools, which are a model for readiness schools and in-district charter schools in essence. They require management-labor signoff. There are different agendas going on and we need to focus on what the common ground is. The union helped make that happen. It has bogged down a bit and we need to restart that engine in a different way. There need to be different models of delivering education and we need to look at which models are working and should be replicated. The state can take a strong leadership role in clarifying.

DONAHUE: Anne Wass, every person in this room can think of one or two teachers who have made the significant difference in their lives. Secretary Reville talked about performance contracts and leadership authority at readiness schools. Teachers are challenged politically and practically. What is your response to that?

ANNE WASS, MASS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT: One thing that is the basis for success is collaboration. I found that in some places where we have done innovative things, like expanded learning time, the success is right at the beginning stages, before anything is on paper, where the people in the building and the parents are involved. When that happens and they have input all along the way, it’s been working and working very well. The places where it was not done that is where we have had the problems. One of the ways when we bargain, it’s called intraspace bargaining, the groups sit in a room and express their interests. It’s different from the traditional model. It’s based on respect and trust. When you have that atmosphere, it’s really amazing the kinds of things you can accomplish. I don’t see anything as far as an obstacle there. I don’t think it needs to be outside bargaining, where you can make allowances or differences.

DONAHUE: Innovation could involve traditional practices where young people are taught in front of a classroom teacher and there are other designs, a variety of people teaching in and out of schools, externships and internships for credit, and the BELL program that works in the summer to close the gap and provide remediation. There are all sorts of challenges coming. If you are in a room with some of your members and you said this is what we need to do differently and it’s not going to be easy, what do you think the future holds for teaching in a context that is innovative and embraces different approaches?

WASS: Most teachers would open their arms and welcome it. Volunteerism sometimes has holes in it and people don’t show up. The things you talk about are more organized and dependable and certainly they welcome sustainable, dependable kinds of support. We have three priorities – narrowing the achievement gap, closing the staffing gap and reducing the funding gap – and the three are intertwined. An article I read in your magazine was about two periods out of eight where one on one tutoring is done. I don’t know anyone opposed to that. That certainly could benefit. It’s the funding issue. I got a call this week. An override was turned down and 47 staff are going to be let go. It’s difficult to provide the innovation you want to do without the resources, whether it’s time or people.

DONAHUE: You say you support innovation. Teachers want to be free to be creative. You talk about funding. Some people tie together innovation and funding. People are concerned about pouring more good money after bad. You don’t need to be an expert in literacy to sit with a student and read with them. Some say we will exhaust the volunteer nature of this effort. Can you imagine schools staffed with well-heeled, supported, well paid teachers and other members of our citizenry engaged in learning and being paid as well? A key issue is the compensation of staff. What about supplying new part-time members and maybe paying people who are not traditional teachers?

WASS: I definitely agree on paying. Public education should not be based on the volunteerism philosophy. It’s wonderful as an icing on the cake. It should not be the thing that makes the cake stand. What you are describing sounds like tutors, which we used to have a lot of, at least in my district. They would come in and work one on one or with three of four children. They were paid less than certified teachers. It’s one of the areas we have seen cut back.

DONAHUE: The second question was about the funding. What is a solution to the resource issue? A redistribution, differences in the way it is shared, or differences in the way we raise resources?

WASS: I think we need to look at all of those possibilities. If we are spending money on things that don’t work, those things should be stopped and resources realigned. It’s without question we need to raise resources, new revenues from somewhere. I am proposing a task force on state revenue enhancement on ways to raise more revenue. There needs to be a commitment. We are one of the wealthiest states and we have to make a commitment to our youth and unfortunately many people don’t seem to want to do that. A bully pulpit has been really lacking in this state up until now. If all of us, you along with us, are speaking out all the time about how important this is, maybe the public will begin to believe that they have a commitment to it. We do polling all the time. Education rates highly as the biggest concern but this year it dropped a little because people are worried about the economy as gas and food goes up. Whether it’s good times or bad times, our children have to be given the things they need in order to accomplish. Funding mechanisms we used when I started in the 70s, it’s old. You want innovative and new programs, we need innovative ways of funding.

DONAHUE: Mayor Wong, Fitchburg is talked about as a renaissance city. It is getting national play. It would be great if families could do all they can to support students so they can succeed. You think about your community as a larger whole. If our education system is really serious about success of all learners, what does it mean in terms of building bridges to families and social service agencies?

LISA WONG, MAYOR OF FITCHBURG: This forum is one of the things that needs to be done to really make strides. We are trying to break down silos in Fitchburg. The climate I walked into – I liked the 100-year dash analogy – we have been pulling people out of the stands and onto the field and trying to mobilize them for action. You have to point to a course and make them realize it’s a marathon. You have to get people to hand water to the runners. You have to talk about awards and rewards. I use the keep it simple method. Politics does find inroads into school and into education. I am the chief politician in the city but I made it a goal to keep politics out of it as much as possible. I have designated a fellow school committee member to say at each meeting if I don’t: this is about the children if I don’t say it. The words children and kids were rarely mentioned at school committee meetings. If we are not saying the words then we are not directing ourselves in that direction. I have not been using labels. I talk about lifelong learning concepts. To bring people to the table, it’s about making sure we are having the right conversations. Talking about the children has really been key. From a practical standpoint, I am focused on building support for the school staff so they can focus on the children. With 800 employees, I am trying to get an HR director, a public facilities manager and I am trying to make connections with non-profits and inviting a myriad of people to the table to talk about these issues.

DONAHUE: The idea of not having an HR manager in a school focused on human capital is alarming. You have real changes you need to make. What is it like in your seat? There is no graduate school or training program to go to to become a mayor. You face political risks by challenging the status quo. Give people some understanding.

WONG: The first area of challenge is funding. We received a reduction in the school budget in real dollars, the only school district in the Commonwealth to do so. In light of a $5 million budget deficit, I increased the school budget by 4 percent. It was highly unpopular throughout the city because there had to be further reductions in other city services. There had to be long-term thinking. Finances, that is always a big struggle. When I hear phrases like here you are trying to have pay as you throw trash and trying to make us pay for services and why do I have to pay for schools if I don’t have kids in the schools? I talk about it being about everyone. My parents had to learn a lot when they came here. We have a city with a struggling demographic. If we don’t focus on lifelong learning, we are not going to succeed. The other area we are trying to break down – I probably spend way too much time in the schools – I want to see what I am talking about and have that interaction with the students. Our schools are roughly 40 percent minority. We have a state college that is 2 percent minority. That is a problem. With the 1,200 employees in the city, we are pushing a 3 percent minority mark with myself. Going into the schools is the stuff you can’t measure.

DONAHUE: You talked about representation of underserved and minority populations. Some say there is no significant social change that is preceded by change in regulation and that there is always some disruption that occurred. Just knowing what works and talking policy change isn’t enough. At some point there needs to be a campaign and public outcry. Imagine parents and students saying they are fed up and things are not happening fast enough. They ask you to stand with them. What would you do?

WONG: That is something that has happened a few times. I have chosen to stand with them, not because I agree with them but because I want to talk to them. They are full of passion and emotion and I want to figure out what is driving that emotion. In talking to people about trash the Iraq war comes up. Those are great opportunities to say, where is your energy coming from and can we direct it towards sitting down at a table or signing a petition? For me it’s that dialogue created whether you agree or disagree.

DONAHUE: We are drawing to a close. I want to thank our panelists. We did not get to the MCAS discussion. It is addressed in Commonwealth magazine. We have one more piece to the program. MCAS is obviously a major issue and we did not tackle the future of the high school diploma in the context of higher education being a focus of success. The Commonwealth is poised at an exciting precipice. The only question here is what message do we choose to send? I have a feeling here that the message is about preparedness, risk and challenge, leadership and success for generations to come. The confidence I have is because we know how to do things like this. I am very confident that there is a next revolution of schooling on its way. We have the confidence to follow a vision to its conclusion.

PAUL GROGAN, BOSTON FOUNDATION CEO: I thank all of our cosponsors. This has been a terrific program. I would just observe that there was a kind of disconnect for me in listening to the new secretary designate. Paul Reville is such a mild mannered, even-tempered, thoughtful, deliberate, cerebral presenter that some of us might have missed how radical what he was saying was and I don’t want anyone to miss that. That was a manifesto. He, on behalf of our newly empowered governor, the most powerful governor in the history of the state in education, has issued a manifesto for radical, sweeping, transformational change and in so doing has set a standard for the governor’s own proposals that we will see shortly. Do they measure up to this manifesto? I am hopeful that they will. But there are very great odds against sweeping transformational change in the public realm. The odds are that these kinds of changes don’t happen because the parties at interest draw a circle around permissible choices. That did not happen in 1993. What changes the odds? It was the muscular and robust presence of independent, disinterested leadership from the business and civic communities. And if the governor is to have any hope that his measures that will be enacted will measure up to the radical vision offered by the secretary this morning, it is going to depend on a renewal of this kind of muscular, robust participation from disinterested parties that can change the choices, empower public officials to act somewhat contrary to their respective interests and also to represent the unrepresented. Much of the discussion this morning has been about poor children concentrated in inner cities, relatively powerless politically. Someone has to act on their behalf. The possibility for disruptive transformational change is directly related to the level of dissatisfaction we feel about the present. So it’s going to be up to many of us to raise and keep at a very high level the level of dissatisfaction with the present course if we’re going to have a hope of realizing the splendid vision we’ve been offered this morning. I hope we can do it.