Lifeboat for failing schools
THE UNDERSIDE of education reform in Massachusetts is the abundance of low-achieving schools in mostly poor cities and towns where progress in the classroom is torturously slow. It has become common knowledge in the Patrick administration that many of these schools won’t improve significantly without aggressive intervention by state education officials.
Governor Patrick will soon seek legislative approval to beef up his earlier “readiness schools’’ plan by allowing the state commissioner of education to appoint a receiver for dozens of chronically underperforming schools. State takeover would open the way for dramatic changes in curriculum, budgeting, staffing, and key provisions in teacher contracts, such as the length of the school day. The type of intervention and the level of control retained by local school districts would depend largely on the academic status of the school and its willingness to improve. But the proposed bill will open the way for the removal of school administrators and ineffective teachers in the worst schools without regard to collective bargaining contracts. And in some cases, nothing less will do.
Despite providing generous support for education reform since the early 1990s, lawmakers have shown undue deference to local school committees and teachers unions. The Legislature, for example, retains tight caps on charter schools, which compete favorably with local schools by offering reforms similar to Patrick’s proposal. But with about 200 Massachusetts schools on a federal watch list, there should be plenty of room for both new charter schools and Patrick’s readiness schools.
The Legislature has taken huge steps to close public pension loopholes and pass tough ethics laws for public officials. Lawmakers should take a similarly-bold approach to education reform both by raising the cap on charter schools and giving the education commissioner the power needed to intervene in broken schools. Nothing fruitful comes of blaming broken or poor families for poor schooling. Of course some students are harder to educate. But every school is redeemable so long as it enjoys strong leadership, talented teachers, adequate funding, and enough hours in the day to make up for deficiencies in the home. And federal stimulus funds for education are available to those states willing to prove it.
Education commissioner Mitchell Chester is promising his department will be ready to intervene if given the power to do so. He is soliciting nonprofit organizations, colleges and even private and charter schools to take control of failing schools. But success for the state’s worst schools may remain out of reach unless the Legislature acts. 