Seeking a kinder word for failure

Schools' morale front and center

To soothe the bruised egos of educators and children in lackluster schools, Massachusetts officials are now pushing for kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure.

Instead of calling these schools "underperforming," the Board of Education is considering labeling them as "Commonwealth priority," to avoid poisoning teacher and student morale.

Schools in the direst straits, now known as "chronically underperforming," would get the more urgent but still vague label of "priority one."

The board has spent parts of more than three meetings in recent months debating the linguistic merits and tone set by the terms after a handful of superintendents from across the state complained that the label underperforming unfairly casts blame on educators, hinders the recruitment of talented teachers, and erodes students' self-esteem.

While many educators support the largely symbolic changes, others call them sugarcoating and unnecessary, feeding into the sentiment that children are coddled. Debating the terms, they say, wastes time when the board should be coming up with a plan to fix the state's 114 low-performing schools. Changing the labels seems to be intended to appease overly sensitive educators, critics say.

"This is all word games," said John Silber, the famously brusque former Boston University president and former chairman of the Board of Education. "Changing the name doesn't change the reality. I think Shakespeare had a good line: 'A rose by another name would smell as sweet.' A skunk by any other name would stink."

When Silber presided over the board in the late 1990s, he chastised members for allowing students who scored at the "needs improvement" level to pass the MCAS test. He also recommended calling that level "deficient," but members balked.

"Now here they have schools that are not doing adequately, so they're changing the name?" he said with dismay. "Why don't we call them special schools?"

Zachary Tsetsos, a senior at Oxford High School and the only student on the board, said he finds the debate frivolous.

"Why are we spending time on this?," said the 17-year-old. "I don't want to tiptoe around the issue. I'm not concerned about what title we give these schools. Let's work on fixing them."

The labels were created following the state's 1993 Education Reform Act to highlight extraordinary failure rates in some schools. The 2001 federal law pushing for more accountability from school systems thrust the issues of failing schools and what to call them into the spotlight.

For years, Massachusetts superintendents have resented education officials for slapping them with the labels. Now, the board members are debating whether they should seek public comment on the new terms before amending state regulations to formalize the name changes in May.

Board members have already begun using the label "priority" for schools in the "underperforming" category at their meetings.

At a December meeting on how to improve struggling schools in Holyoke, Lawrence, and Springfield, superintendents implored members not to stick them with a label of "chronically underperforming."

"For our teachers, it's a blow," said Wilfredo Laboy, Lawrence superintendent. "It demoralizes staff completely."

Joseph Burke, Springfield superintendent, said that while he is not crazy about any label, he would prefer "priority one," because "It sounds nicer."

Holyoke Superintendent Eduardo Carballo said his system has trouble attracting new teachers because "certain teachers don't want to start their careers in an underperforming school."

A similar scene played out in November when the board met with Randolph officials to address the fate of their decaying school system and whether to take the rare step of branding the entire district underperforming.

After admitting that "the school system is literally going to collapse upon itself," Larry Azer, chairman of the Randolph School Committee, pleaded with the board not to stigmatize the district.

"When schools are labeled as underachieving, I don't see what it serves other than just to call them out," he said. "And it creates this antagonistic nature of, 'Well, you did something bad, and we're going to punish you for it.' . . . When the town hears underperforming, the average person thinks these students are underperforming."

But the reality is that Randolph students are underperforming, according to state benchmarks. More than half of third-graders are not proficient in math and reading. More than 40 percent of 10th-graders don't perform at grade level in English and math.

Randolph Superintendent Richard Silverman suggested calling the district "high needs schools" instead.

Several board members at last month's meeting said they were hesitant to solicit public input on the matter. After several minutes of hand-wringing, the board voted 5 to 4 to table the issue.

"We just haven't thought through a mechanism that avoids labels altogether, which is what I'd be really after," member Sandra Stotsky said.

No one is sure what will happen next. "We generally agree that this is not hugely consequential," board chairman Paul Reville said. "It's a symbolic action."

Minutes spent on the subject that day: 17.

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