How sad -- and suicidal - that conservatives have decided to declare open warfare on public education.
In a previous life, I played a minor role as speechwriter and special assistant to our state's Secretary of Education during the development and public roll out of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993.
This landmark law, and many like it, passed during what was known as the "second wave" of education reform that came ashore in the wake of the wake-up call about America's failing public schools that was sounded by the Reagan-era report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983's A Nation at Risk.
The Massachusetts reform law was truly a bi-partisan accomplishment, hammered out between Republican Governor William F. Weld and the Democratic Legislature.
Governor Weld agreed to double the state's investment in local public schools