A model in business and education
A RECENT statewide report found that 70 percent of students from 12 Massachusetts urban and vocational high schools required one or more remedial classes once they got to college. The study confirms that helping students in poor and urban schools - schools that have largely missed out on the impressive gains of the last 15 years - should be the Commonwealth's top educational priority.
Massachusetts is not alone. Today, about one-third of the students in Washington, D.C.'s schools drop out and less than one in 10 graduates from college. But the ambitious agenda laid out by the district's Chancellor Michelle Rhee may provide a roadmap for addressing the immense challenges of urban education.
Rhee's prescription mixes healthy doses of competition with participation from Washington's business and nonprofit communities.
She began by announcing plans to close 23 of the district's worst schools. Washington is already among cities with the highest percentage of students attending charter schools, and Rhee isn't afraid to encourage more competition and choice. She is currently seeking non-profit organizations to take over a dozen of the city's poorest performing high schools.
The chancellor, who has been in her job for less than a year, is also attempting to build on a lesson of Massachusetts's successful reform effort by encouraging unprecedented business involvement in public education. She has issued a challenge to raise $75 million per year for five years from the business and nonprofit communities, which would help fund teacher salaries and incentives. She also put out the call for businesses to adopt schools and donate employee time for mentoring and one-on-one tutoring.
The strategy reflects an understanding that human capital is the most valuable element of education. Nothing impacts student achievement more than teacher quality, and one-on-one tutoring stretches human resources to help students who need it the most.
Equally encouraging is Rhee's commitment to accountability and performance measurement.
Business and nonprofit involvement must also be a central piece of Massachusetts's plans to improve education for poor and urban students. There are a number of proven school managers, both not-for-profit and for-profit, who would be glad to show what they can do.
The state Board of Education should create a new class of public school that could replace existing schools that are failing. Operators would bid for the right to manage these "contract schools." They would be granted the same freedom from school district bureaucracy enjoyed by charter schools, but wouldn't be subject to strict caps on charter school enrollment.
The program could be piloted by putting the worst performing schools in a city like Springfield or Lowell out for bid under five-year management contracts. Operators would be held accountable for improving average MCAS scores by at least five points over the term of the contract (MCAS is scored on a 200-280 scale; the passing grade is 220). Bidders would be selected based on how much they pledge to improve scores.
Those who improve achievement by more than the amount specified in their bids would earn financial rewards; those who fail to achieve the goal would face penalties. Similar rewards and penalties would apply for other important measures of school success, like increasing attendance and decreasing dropout rates. Bidders would be required to demonstrate the ability to make the payments associated with not achieving performance benchmarks.
The generosity of the business and philanthropic communities would be critical to the success of these new schools. Turning around failing schools costs money, but much of the funding could be redirected from existing privately funded remedial support programs.
Is it possible for business and foundation leaders to develop such a coordinated strategy to turn around our worst performing schools?
That's the question Rhee is posing in our nation's capital. Massachusetts's experience suggests the answer is yes. In 1993, the Bay State's business community dedicated itself to an education reform effort that combined resources, choice, and accountability to become a national model. Harnessing those same forces could help provide disadvantaged students with the opportunity they deserve.
Lovett C. Peters is founding chairman of The Pioneer Institute.
