Greater Expectations
The Boston Globe
September 16, 2004
--SNIP--
Underperforming schools
MCAS pass rates for minority students are on the rise. But only 31 percent of black 10th-graders scored in the higher categories - proficient and advanced - on the most recent math exam. White students scored in the higher ranges at twice that rate. And urban schools with high percentages of minorities badly lag their suburban counterparts.
James Peyser, chairman of the state Board of Education, says the quest to eliminate those differences is "the Holy Grail of education reform." The search for answers will intensify this year, especially with federal pressure from the No Child Left Behind Act.
The federal law mandates that schools not only show yearly progress toward proficiency on a schoolwide level but also within subgroups, including minority students. Yesterday, state education officials announced that 384 of the state's 1,860 public schools have failed to meet their progress targets. Chronic low performance at 51 schools in Boston, Springfield, Lawrence, and other urban centers now requires emergency action by state officials, including administrative restructuring at 26 schools.
State officials must maintain their focus on helping all students achieve proficiency in math and English by 2014, as mandated by federal law. The Board of Education appears tempted to tinker with the scoring system on the MCAS exam, making it tougher to achieve the passing grade of 220. But the focus belongs on propelling students into the higher categories of achievement, the best indicator of a successful high school experience.
Obstacles to reform
The No Child Left Behind Act fails in some cases to recognize the peaks and plateaus common in educational advancement. The law will need fine-tuning in Congress next year regardless of who is in the White House.
--SNIP--
Labor relations
Few fast friendships developed between labor and management during the first decade of education reform. Each side has come to view the other through hardened images: the teacher obsessed with work rules versus the despotic administrator. The standoff is hindering further reform.
"We won't get to proficiency unless adults find better and more efficient ways of working together," says Paul Reville, executive director of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy in Boston. This year the center will bring together union and management representatives from larger school districts on a quarterly schedule to design a workplace that minimizes labor tensions and maximizes student achievement. The initiative comes none too soon, especially in Boston, where union representatives and principals are already starting to cross swords.
New funding pressures
Next month the state Supreme Judical Court will review the findings of a Superior Court judge who ruled in May that state funding for education is inadequate in poor districts despite the billions of dollar spent since 1993 on bringing struggling school districts up to a reasonable foundation budget.
There are clearly areas where more state funds are needed. Last year's $40 million cut in MCAS remedial classes ranks among the poorest budget decisions of recent memory. But overall, the spending gaps between rich and poor districts have diminished while performance gaps remain wide.
Adjustments to foundation budgets will be needed once educators know why some low-income students outperform their socio economic peers and how to replicate such programs. But state officials cannot be counted on to fuel the next round of education reform with the 12 percent annual injections common in the 1990s. Reform must be targeted to precise student needs, not collective bargaining contracts.
The court is examining funding impacts on low-income districts. But glaring inequities can be found in some middle-class school districts where quirks in the funding formula cause communities with similar needs to receive widely different levels of aid. Such inequities will undermine public support for the next round of education reform and must be addressed in the next legislative session.
--SNIP--
With few exceptions, the culture of high stakes and high expectations is embraced across the state. Schoolteachers and administrators, once benumbed by the new demands, now take for granted the likelihood of improvement. Education reform in Masachusetts should continue to grow and renew.
