State official wants tougher plan to aid struggling students

MALDEN -- The chairman of the state Board of Education, saying the state has failed to take tough action to fix struggling schools, blocked action on the normally routine approval of schools' turnaround plans yesterday.

The plans, which the state requires of underperforming schools, have failed to produce meaningful results in the last five years, said James A. Peyser, board chairman. Student performance has declined in a quarter of the 40 schools that have operated under the board-approved improvement plans for at least two years, Peyser said. Others made minimal gains on state math and English MCAS tests.

''I am afraid that we are not even trying to use the authority we have," Peyser said. ''Moreover, the incrementalism of our school turnaround efforts reflects a lack of imagination, a lack of will, and, most troubling, a lack of urgency."

Rather than approving the plans as recommended by Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll, Peyser called on the state board to consider more drastic measures, including requiring districts to hire an outside firm to run failing schools or converting them to independent charter schools. The board, which deadlocked 4-4 on whether to accept three schools' turnaround plans, will resume the discussion about underperforming schools in December.

Yesterday's vote raises questions about what the board will do with the 32 schools the state is evaluating to decide whether they, too, should be deemed underperforming. Peyser's move also heats up an ongoing debate about how harshly the state should deal with its lowest-performing schools. The governor and a coalition of education and business leaders have been pushing for stronger state intervention.

Driscoll later chided the board for not doing as he wished.

''This is going to send a chilling effect, which I don't think we need to send to these three schools," Driscoll said. ''Let's recognize we need to go a lot further. In this case, I would almost plead with you to approve these plans, recognizing it was a good-faith effort."

The 1993 Education Reform Act called for the state to spend billions on school improvement and to intervene in failing schools. Once identified as underperforming, schools get six months to detail what they will do to improve scores and make other changes and two years to execute the plan. If a school continues to fail, the state board's options include removing the principal.

The state's traditional approach with failing schools has been to approve schools' plans to add teacher training, to change the curriculum, and to monitor students' test scores, Peyser and others said yesterday.

Peyser said he expects the three schools -- a middle school in New Bedford and an alternative school and elementary school in Springfield -- will carry out their plans for improvement. The plans are on the right track, but do not force changes fast enough, he said.

''In my view, all the improvement plans before us today offer hope for modest improvement, at best," Peyser said. ''At worst, they merely endorse preexisting reforms and protect the interest of adults."

Superintendents in the Springfield and New Bedford school systems said they felt slighted by the board's decision, which they said was a political, not educational, one. Still, they said they expect to move ahead with their plans.

Michael E. Longo, superintendent of New Bedford schools, said his staff worked six months to develop the plans for Normandin Middle School. Two other New Bedford schools were taken off the state's underperforming list recently because the schools improved, he pointed out.

The two Springfield schools affected yesterday were Brightwood Elementary School and the Springfield Academy for Excellence, a new collaboration of alternative programs.

Driscoll, though he supported approving the schools' plans, agreed with Peyser's proposal for stronger state intervention. ''Dramatic change needs to be made," Driscoll said.

Peyser said the board, under its legal powers, can ask school systems to hire outside parties, including universities, to oversee underperforming schools. Boston University, for example, has been running Chelsea schools since 1989.

If a school district with underperforming schools is unwilling to turn the school over to an outsider, Peyser said the board should ask the Legislature to give it the power to convert the failing schools into charter schools.

Governor Mitt Romney said through a spokesman yesterday that the state needs to shorten the time it takes to turn around failing schools. He has filed legislation that would cut in half the amount of time it takes for the state to intervene, the spokesman said.

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.