Report: Larger State Role, Turnaround Agents Needed to Help Schools
The State House News Service
Cyndi Roy
April 22, 2005
For more than a decade, state policy makers have focused on increasing student performance standards and accountability, but lawmakers are not meeting their duty to provide schools with the tools needed to meet those goals, according to a new report.
According to the report, "Reaching Capacity: A Blueprint for the State Role in Improving Low Performing Schools and Districts," the state could significantly address three major intervention areas with an investment of $43.75 million. Of that total, $14.35 million would be new funds.
Issued by the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy at MassINC, and sponsored by the Noyce Foundation, the report is based on 55 interviews with principals and superintendents in struggling urban districts. Interviews were also conducted with Department of Education employees and education experts in other states.
The demand for annual progress coupled with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act are forcing more schools into the "underperforming" category, said Paul Reveille, director of the Rennie Center. Unless the state takes a more active role in supporting teachers and school districts, more schools will find themselves in the low performing group, the report says.
Reville says building state capacity to assist schools is the next step in the education reform movement.
"We've let it go long enough," he said. "Now the state is in the urgent position of going forward with the next phase of state ed reform."
Currently, 376 schools and 132 districts have been identified for inadequate MCAS progress two or more consecutive years, Reville said. That's nearly 20 percent of the public schools and almost a third of the school districts for the 2002-2003 academic year. The lowest-performing districts last year were Boston, Brockton, Chicopee, Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Springfield, and Worcester.
The report recommends changes that include a major shakeup at the state Department of Education.
The state should collaborate with "turnaround partners," such as consultants, former teachers, universities, business consultants, and brokers, who can develop and implement intervention plans for some of the lowest-scoring districts, the report suggests. The state Department of Education estimates it can cost up to $300,000 to turn around an individual school, and up to $800,000 to improve a district. In their fiscal 2006 budget proposal, House budget writers included a new $1 million earmark for school intervention.
The report also suggests state education officials offer teachers more guidanceon curriculum development and expand their teacher training programs.
Among the programs participants said they would like to see are help in the areas of curriculum frameworks and strategies for improving instruction to special education and English as a Second Language students.
Teachers and educational leaders also need the tools to track individual student progress on a real-time basis, Reville said in an interview. While MCAS is a good measure of performance on an annual basis, it doesn't allow teachers to alter their teaching methods to address students' immediate shortcomings, he said. The report suggests investing in a formative, value-added assessment system specifically for underperforming schools at an estimated cost of $2.6 million.
Lawmakers and Gov. Romney are examining the needs of low-performing schools. Much of the $100 million in new education spending in Gov. Romney's budget proposal targeted low-income, low-scoring districts, while the legislative leaders say they recognize the need to change the status quo and examine the most successful ways to improve school performance.
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