In 2001, Jacob Hiatt was a Blue Ribbon School, meaning it had won federal recognition as a school that promotes model educational programs and was effective in meeting local, state and national educational goals.

That same year, Canterbury Street School was declared a compass school, a state recognition that the school had raised student achievement, built community support for education and shared good practices and ideas.

This year both schools are on the state’s list of schools not making the grade. 

In 2002, Elm Park, Goddard School of Science and Technology and Rice Square were on the list of Worcester schools not making the grade. In 2004, the three schools were taken off the list, because presumably they were making the grade then.

This year, however, all three schools are again not making the grade.

How is it possible for schools to attain and then lose good educational practices in such short order?

What does it say about the effectiveness of the state’s school and school district accountability systems, which policymakers say is designed to have the majority of public school students performing at the proficiency level in core academic subjects by 2014?

This week, for example, the state released a report showing that after years of education reform, the number of schools falling behind across the state is increasing, not decreasing.

In fact, the failure trend appears to mirror the results of a study by Ed Moscovitch of Cape Ann Economics, which predicted that by 2014, 75 percent of the state’s public schools will fail to meet the performance standards established in the state’s accountability system.

State Board of Education member Roberta R. Schaefer, noting that the Massachusetts accountability system is a combination of state benchmarks and the national benchmarks imbedded in the No Child Left Behind law, said the failure rate, while a concern, was anticipated.

“I am not happy (with the results), but I am not surprised,” she said of the rising failure rate of the state’s schools.

“What we have set out to do is an extremely difficult task. It took us 30 to 40 years to get into this mess, and we are not going to turn it around in a decade.”

But observers such as S. Paul Reville, executive director of the Cambridge-based Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, don’t believe the board is on track to turn schools around.

Mr. Reville agreed with Worcester officials that funding is an issue. For example, in 2001, Worcester was spending nearly $4 million on preschool services. The services at the time included 56 teachers, 56 instructional assistants and 34 full-day programs. This year the school district is spending only half that amount on preschool services, which includes no full-day programs and a staff of 26 teachers and 26 instructional assistants.

Mr. Reville said, however, that the major problem is the state’s inability to help schools get better.

“It is clear that we haven’t figured out what to do about underperforming schools,” he said.

“We are struggling as a nation at this point. We have established standards and developed systems to measure progress. We have the punitive side in place, but we don’t have the technical assistance and support side figured out yet.”

He noted that there is now nationwide consensus that the NCLB performance growth rate for schools and school districts is unrealistic.

“The aspirations and principles are right, but at the moment we are creating a crisis of public confidence and a real dilemma for the Legislature,” Mr. Reville said.

“There are only two ways to go. You either back down or acknowledge that the current expectations are unrealistic, or you redouble your effort to help schools.”

So far the state is doing neither.

Even as schools are failing by the hundreds, the state Board of Education’s reaction is to launch a pre-election rush to get legislation approved that would increase graduation requirements for high school students and speed up the process of having third parties take over underperforming schools.

“There is no question in my mind that Massachusetts has become the high-pressure laboratory for those who seek to privatize public education,” according to Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.

“They are humiliating and bringing districts to their knees in order to take management of schools out of the hands of local school committees and put them into the hands of unelected, nonpublic and private entities.”

I would like to say Mr. Koocher is off his rocker, but I can’t.

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